UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a file containing numbers in a column like:

10.5
16.3
15.7
2.3
46.8
3.3
.
.
.

and I was wondering if there was a way to make it show up in an array form like:

10.5 2.3
16.3 46.8
15.7 3.3

Let's say I want to make a new column every 100 values. How can I do that and be able to copy and paste the values into individual cells in MS Excel? If it's not possible, let me know too.

Thank you!

The 'paste' command slides files together, so you just need scripts to select the right and left columns. You too 3 and 3, but then you have ..., so is it 3 or half or ? You can pipe together the two file generators to pipe so there is no delay, temp file space limit or extra i/o overhead.

Oh sorry, those are decimal values. Let me give a better example of what I want to do.

I have a file that contains:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

and I want to make a file that contains:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

and for me to be able to copy that 3 by 3 array and paste it into a 3 by 3 table in excel.

Are you saying the 'paste' command will make a new file with data from each file displayed side by side? If so, is there a way I can take a file and make new files containing every 100 lines of the original file?

Thanks again.

Code:

awk '{printf $1 (!(NR % cols) ? c="\n" : c=" "); } END {print "";}' cols=3 infile

Sorry, just checking. cols will be the number of entries in each column right? Not the number of columns? And what's the $1 for?

Or you can use the paste command directly (each dash represents a column). You can use the -d option of paste to set the delimiter (default is tab)

Code:

cat yourfile | paste - - -

if yourfile contained

Code:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
 
and you did
cat yourfile | paste - - -

Code:

You would get
1       2       3
4       5       6
7       8       9

cols is the number of columns out. $1 is the field one on the input file, as in the example provided.