UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi everyone,

Can anyone guide me on how to search through a huge file and look on specific column and if it finds a discrepancy on that column that does not conform to the specified criteria,

ie

(1) Numeric and (3) alpha chars F123 or G333..etc, etc!

then idientify it and redirect that whole row to a some newfile.txt


ie input file .....

john watson F300 2005 234567
mary millington g306 2002 343567
tony hancock hi45 2004 999999
Frederick Smith T302 888883
John Semple VIiv 223441
Tony Mallony F333 867492

outputfile......

tony hancock hi45 2004 999999
John Semple VIiv 223441

awk '$3 !~ /[A-Za-z][0-9][0-9][0-9]/' < inputfile > outputfile

Should that not work, try nawk rather than awk.

Might have to match beginning/end of string, like....

Code:

awk '$3 !~ /^[A-Za-z][0-9][0-9][0-9]$/' < inputfile > outputfile

Thanks for that, it works a treat!