UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Dear All,
I have a file containing 12 lines.
First 3 lines have 9 values and the remaining 9 lines with no values. I was trying to copy and paste these 9 values of the first 3 lines into last 9 lines simultaneously as A=1.491331, B=1.539000 ..... but I don't know how to cope with this problem in Vi editor. To copy and paste whole lines in Vi editor is pretty easy but a particular a set of values in a line is difficult for me to copy and paste. I have big file with many values to deal with but I am providing following few lines. What are the commands to put the 9 values into their respective variables e.g. A= , B= ...?
Thanks in advance.

1.491331 122.168 1.143
1.539000 105.633 -119.191
1.235793 121.142 -67.765
A=
B=
C=
D=
E=
F=
G=
H=
I=

It is not easy to do in vi, but you can make use of tools such as awk.

Try:

Code:

cat file | xargs -n1 | awk '!/[A-Z]/ {A[++i]=$0; } /[A-Z]/ { print $0 A[++j] }'  >out_file

or

Code:

awk 'NF>1 { for (x=1;x<=NF;x++) A[++i]=$x } /[A-Z]/ { print $0 A[++j] }' < file >out_file

Output:

Code:

cat out_file
A=1.491331
B=122.168
C=1.143
D=1.539000
E=105.633
F=-119.191
G=1.235793
H=121.142
I=-67.765

[/QUOTE]

You can use the yw command to yank words so for a number like 1.143 you would use
3yw since vi see this as 3 words "1" "." "143". Then go to where you want to paste it and just use the paste command "p".

For a signed number like -119.191 you would use 4yw.

nerd is correct. A "word" for vi is some sequence of characters separated by certain separator characters (or the end of the line/file). Usual separators are: any whitespace, ".", "-", etc. (this is even configurable in the file "~/.exrc"). A single separator character also counts as "word" in this respect.

To put this in the undying prose of the "IBM Manual of Data Processing" (ca. 1975)

A word is a sequence of non-blank characters separated by blanks.

It is possible to use ONLY whitespace as separator characters by using "W" (uppercase W) instead of "w". Hence, to put "-1.43" to the yank buffer by the "y" command you could either use "4yw" or "yW". The first one will copy the next 4 "words" ("-", "1", ".", "43"), the latter will copy one "Word", which is everything up to the next blank/line end.

Whatever you use, move the cursor to the line you want to insert text at an press "p" to paste it after the cursor position or "P" to paste it before the cursor position.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thanks to all, but problem is that I have more than 40 values to copy and paste and its really very time consuming. Is it possible to copy and paste all the values simultaneously by using one command line?

you can use ULTRA-EDIT :
it connects using FTP to your server,
you click-click on the file and it comes to the PC,
you edit it, then "save" and there you are - better than VI !

Grab line numbers, for beginning and ending lines, use

Code:

:set nu

within vi.

Code:

1 ant bat cat
2 dog emu fox
3 gnu hen ibis

Then type:

Code:

:1,3!tr ' ' '\012'

This puts everything on its own line.
From there, you'll just have to hand edit your variable assignments.

Unless someone else can help some more?