UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

awk '
BEGIN{OFS=FS="|"} 
{
 if(NF>max) max=NF
 for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)
 {
  start=match(a[i],$i)
  if(start && substr(a[i],(start+RLENGTH),1) ~ /^[,]*$/)
   continue
  if(a[i])
   a[i]=a[i]","$i
  else
   a[i]=$i
 }
} 
END{for(i=1;i<=max;i++) $i=a[i];print}' inputfile

#!/bin/ksh
cnt=$(awk -F'|' '{print NF;exit}' 1)
for i in {1..$(expr ${cnt} - 1)}
do
  field=$(cut -d'|' -f${i} 1 | sort -u | tr '\n' ',' | sed 's/,$//g')
  printf ${field}'|'
done
field=$(cut -d'|' -f${cnt} 1 | sort -u | tr '\n' ',' | sed 's/,$//g')
printf ${field}"\n"

if(NF>max) max=NF

i<=NF

start=match(a[i],$i)
  if(start && substr(a[i],(start+RLENGTH),1) ~ /^[,]*$/)

length(a)

reddish|green
blue|green   
red|green

BEGIN{OFS=FS="|"} 
{
    
         for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){
             start=match(a[i],$i)
                  if(start && substr(a[i],(start+RLENGTH),1) ~ /^[,]*$/)
                       continue
                  if(a[i])
                       a[i] = a[i]","$i
                  else
                       a[i] = $i
         }
}
 
END{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) $i=a[i];print}

1|(2,3)|4

1|2,3|4