UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,

I've searched for this but couldn't seem to find the answer I'm looking for. I have a text file that looks like this:

sgea0447 Earnings followed the same path. earnings followed the same path
sgea0448 Economic growth slowed further. economic growth slowed further
sgea0449 Emergency vehicles flash red or red blue. emergency vehicles flash red or red blue.
sgea0450 Encourage someone who is in low spirits. encourage someone who is in low spirits,
sgea0451 Enter the corporate raider. enter the corporate raider,
sgea0452 Entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed. entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed
sgea0453 Especially by your wife. especially by your wife,

As you can see, the last character of each line either already has a period, or it has commas, or it just has no punctuation. What I want is for all the lines to have a period at the end, should look like this:

sgea0447 Earnings followed the same path. earnings followed the same path.
sgea0448 Economic growth slowed further. economic growth slowed further.
sgea0449 Emergency vehicles flash red or red blue. emergency vehicles flash red or red blue.
sgea0450 Encourage someone who is in low spirits. encourage someone who is in low spirits.
sgea0451 Enter the corporate raider. enter the corporate raider.
sgea0452 Entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed. entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed.
sgea0453 Especially by your wife. especially by your wife.

Can anyone help??

Try this:

Code:

sed 's/[,.]*$/./' file > newfile

Hi Franklin,
Thanks for your reply, but it didn't seem to check if the last char in the line is already a '.', but only added it. Here's what I got with your one-liner:

sgea0447 Earnings followed the same path. earnings followed the same path
.
sgea0448 Economic growth slowed further. economic growth slowed further
.
sgea0449 Emergency vehicles flash red or red blue. emergency vehicles flash red or red blue.
.
sgea0450 Encourage someone who is in low spirits. encourage someone who is in low spirits,
.
sgea0451 Enter the corporate raider. enter the corporate raider,
.
sgea0452 Entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed. entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed
.
sgea0453 Especially by your wife. especially by your wife,
.

Try this:

Code:

awk '!/\.$/{sub(/$/, ".")};{print}' myfile.txt

EDIT:
Hmm, didnt see the comma, sorry.

EDIT:
This works..

Code:

awk 'sub(/,$/, "") || !/\.$/{sub(/$/, ".")};{print}' myfile.txt

Hi Ikon,

I got the same exact output as earlier with Franklin's code.

odd I get this:

Code:

$ cat testing
sgea0447 Earnings followed the same path. earnings followed the same path
sgea0448 Economic growth slowed further. economic growth slowed further
sgea0449 Emergency vehicles flash red or red blue. emergency vehicles flash red or red blue.
sgea0450 Encourage someone who is in low spirits. encourage someone who is in low spirits,
sgea0451 Enter the corporate raider. enter the corporate raider,
sgea0452 Entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed. entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed
sgea0453 Especially by your wife. especially by your wife,


[host ~]$ awk 'sub(/,$/, "") || !/\.$/{sub(/$/, ".")};{print}' testing
sgea0447 Earnings followed the same path. earnings followed the same path.
sgea0448 Economic growth slowed further. economic growth slowed further.
sgea0449 Emergency vehicles flash red or red blue. emergency vehicles flash red or red blue.
sgea0450 Encourage someone who is in low spirits. encourage someone who is in low spirits.
sgea0451 Enter the corporate raider. enter the corporate raider.
sgea0452 Entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed. entertaining leaves you feeling relaxed.
sgea0453 Especially by your wife. especially by your wife.

What OS?

I get same on Redhat and HP-UX.

I'm using PuTTY. Is there a workaround to this solution for PuTTY users?