UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a major problem in my source files. I have around 10 source files(around 20 GB).In one of the source files I am getting the broken line issue.My source files needs to be like this

Code:

Sr.No~Ref.No~Address~Acc.No
  1~ABC345~No.2/110~456474
  2~ABC786~4w/54~458695
  3~ABC398~45/67B~748582
  4~ABC984~67/54t~852147

Because of broken line issue, I have getting the source file like this.

Code:

Sr.No~ Ref.No~Address~Acc.No
  1~ABC345~No.2/110~456474
  2~ABC786~4w/54        
  458695        
  3~ABC398~45/67B~748582  
  4~ABC984~67/54t~852147

My source files starts with SR.No Column and its not static.But my ref.no starts with "ABCxyz"..Is there any solution to fix this?

Try:

Code:

awk -F~ '{ORS=NF<4?FS:RS}1' file

Hi,

Can you pls. explain the command....

What is that 1 implies?

In general awk has the form:

Code:

awk '
condition {action}' filename

The action is controlled by the condition. So whenever the condition is true(1), the action is executed.

Here 1 is always true and since no action is specified, it prints the current line by default.

In addition to that: ORS=NF<4?FS:RS means, if the number of fields is less than 4 set the output record separator (ORS) to the field seperator (FS, ~ in this case), otherwise to the input record separator (RS, a newline by default)