Text manipulation help


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Text manipulation help
# 1  
Old 09-14-2014
Text manipulation help

Hello unix.com

I'm having trouble with a text file.

It looks like this:

Code:
Alvaro Costa    Daldit Kaur Sings    Brian G Heward
Desmond Ogilvie    John Der    William Gherasim
Lance Mackey    Donald Kopplin    Robert Mckinlay
Jahir Hussain Mohamed    Jack Benaim    Abraham Weiss

I want it to look like this:

Code:
Alvaro
Costa
Daldit
Kaur
Sings
Brian
B
Heward


Thanks in advance.

Last edited by Don Cragun; 09-14-2014 at 05:50 AM.. Reason: Add CODE tags.
# 2  
Old 09-14-2014
Let me see if I understand what you're trying to do:
  1. Read the first line of a file,
  2. if any word is a single character, change it to the first character of the previous word,
  3. change all occurrence of one or more space characters to a single <newline> character, and
  4. ignore the rest of the file.
Is this correct?

What have you tried so far?
# 3  
Old 09-14-2014
I want all the names to be sorted as line-by-line. Is it possible to do it?
# 4  
Old 09-14-2014
I fail to see how the desired output you showed us with the G changed to a B (which is not sorted by first name, not sorted by last name, not sorted by individual words, and only contains output from a single input line) meets your desire to get "all the names to be sorted as line-by-line."

I repeat: What have you tried so far?
# 5  
Old 09-14-2014
I dont know how to start since i'm a newbie. And yes... The "B" supposed to be the "G" from
Code:
Brian G Heward

---------- Post updated at 06:12 AM ---------- Previous update was at 04:22 AM ----------

Any tips of how i'm gonna do this?
# 6  
Old 09-14-2014
Try
Code:
sed 's/  */ /g;s/ /\n/g' file

# 7  
Old 09-14-2014
Or:
Code:
xargs -n1 < file

 
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Help text manipulation

Hello Forum , I need a help about text manupulation. I have a text file and I have to manipulate this file. Let's say source.txt source.txt UNB+UNOC:3+O0013000005MAN MN RVS:91+0098006688:92+190304:2313+F004169241' UNH+8146848+DELJIT:D:96A:UN' BGM+307:::JIS_SYNCRO_FIRM+2019030423234101+9'... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: cemokam65
8 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Text manipulation help

Hello again, I have a problem manipulating a large text document and there is no way I could edit this document by hand. Format is: Address : XXXX N 37 Ave, Hollywood, FL, 33021 Phone: XXX3190XXX Player: XXXXXX Character: Jaramillo DOB: June-14-1995 ----- Name: Alexandra Ticket... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: galford
3 Replies

3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Text manipulation help

Hello unix.com users, I have a ip file (line-by-line). How can I delete the ips that keep repeating by mark XXX.XXX.XXX.* ... I want to erase only the lines that keep repeating more than 2 times. Example: 1.2.3.1 1.2.3.2 1.2.3.3 I want to erase all ips blocks that are repeating by C... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: galford
1 Replies

4. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Text Manipulation Help

Hello Unix.com, I have a text in format: john sara lee How can I make it: john:john john:john1 john:john12 john:john123 sara:sara sara:sara12 sara:sara123 and so on (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: galford
2 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

text manipulation help

Hello again unix.com How can I extract from a large file in format: steve@aol.com steve hawkins Location of this member is bla bla bla sun@hotmail.com Sun Ying This member is using browser bla bla bla to another text in format: steve@aol.com steve hawkins sun@hotmail.com sun ying ... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: galford
5 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

[HELP] Text manipulation... [HELP]

I need to know how can I remove all word after comma on each line. Like: jjkj,iiuiui,ijlkjkij,ookoo kijljlj,jhhkj,ijijkijkj,oijkijj kjkljlkj,kjkjlkjlkj,opok,okop to jjkj, kijljlj, ... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: slutb3
5 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Text Manipulation

Greetings. Iīm a biologist and I donīt have mucho knowledge on Unix/Linux, but I need to use Cygwin to change some documents from a GenBank format to a FASTA format. GenBank format goes somthing like this: LOCUS NM_013964 2568 bp mRNA linear PRI 26-APR-2009... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: vanesa1230
2 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Help with text manipulation

Hi there, I have some text files in unix format that processed by a program in windows, and when I open them with less or vi in linux, a warn for opening binary file is prompted, and as shown in vi, between every two characters there was inserted a "^@". How can I fix this. Plus, there are over... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: dustinwang2003
2 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

text manipulation

I am tryin to figure out how to extract interested text from file example.txt blah blah blah a: child1 blah a: child2 blah b: parent1 blah blah blah .... blah a: child21 blah a: child22 blah a: child23 blah b: parent2 this kinda text repeats .. number of children is... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: rajkishore
6 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Text Manipulation.

Hi I have only ever used awk and sed for basic requirements up until now. I have had to break a log down for multiple purposes. Using awk, sed and a date script. I am left with this: (message id, time of msg attempt, message id, domain name, time of msg completion) ... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Icepick
4 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question