UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,

I need help with using grep and regular expressions....

I have a long list of about 1000 lines of Chinese flashcards. Here's a small excerpt:

Code:

意文 yìwén (given name)
貴姓 guìxìng (honorable surname)
貴 guì (honorable)
姓 xìng (one's surname is; to be surnamed; surname)
呢 ne (interrogative particle)
叫 jiào (to be called; to call)
名字 míngzi (name)

syntax:
ChineseCharacter ChinesePinYin (EnglishTranslation)
(each has a space to separate it)

In order to import to my flashcards program on my iPod Touch, the information for each side should be seperated by tabs, and not spaces.
What regular expression will allow me to search for spaces outside the parenthesis and replace them with tabs (since I don't want the English text to be messed up)?

Any help is greatly appreciated .

Thanks,
Michael

Hi.

Would this work?

Code:

$ awk -F"(" -v OFS="(" 'gsub(/ +/, "\t", $1)' file1
意文	yìwén	(given name)
貴姓	guìxìng	(honorable surname)
貴	guì	(honorable)
姓	xìng	(one's surname is; to be surnamed; surname)
呢	ne	(interrogative particle)
叫	jiào	(to be called; to call)
名字	míngzi	(name)

Perfect, that works! Thank you.