How do I replace a string in file that is in a certain position with spaces?

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How do I replace a string in file that is in a certain position with spaces?

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03-29-2016

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How do I replace a string in file that is in a certain position with spaces?

I am trying to replace the string in position 26 through 35 of the data file with 10 spaces and I want the remaining file to stay as is, the record length is over 900 characters? I am trying to use the AWK and substr but I am not getting it formatted correctly.

Before

Code:

512256734618F198451213732347011262015402      315138010001103001

After

Code:

512256734618F1984512137323                5402      315138010001103001

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-29-2016 at 12:15 PM.. Reason: code tags

fnwine1500

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Hello fnwine1500,

Welcome to forums, please use code tags as per forum rules for commands/codes/Inputs which you are using into your posts. Could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

Code:

echo "512256734618F198451213732347011262015402 315138010001103001" | awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10)," ",$0);print}'

Output will be as follows.

Code:

512256734618F198451213732 15402 315138010001103001

Thanks,
R. Singh

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That worked but this is how I coded it to make sure every line was changed:

Code:

awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10)," ",$0);print}' ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.dat

Thank you very much!

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-29-2016 at 01:08 PM.. Reason: code tags

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Didn't you want to insert 10 spaces? Above just puts in a single space...
And, above is safe only if the 10 chars are unique. You need to be sure there's no false positives in the cahrs 1 - 25!
If your awk version allows for empts field separators, try

Code:

awk  '{for (i=26; i<=35; i++) $i = " "} 1' FS="" OFS="" file
512256734618F198451213732          15402      315138010001103001

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With gawk 4:

Code:

awk '{gsub(/./," ",$2)}1' FIELDWIDTHS="25 10 1000" OFS="" file

Scrutinizer

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I couldn't get either suggestion to work. But this seems to work

Code:

awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10),"          ",$0);print}' ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.d

at

The " " actually has 10 spaces in between the quotes

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-29-2016 at 01:39 PM.. Reason: code tags

fnwine1500

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RavinderSingh13

[..]Could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

Code:

echo "512256734618F198451213732347011262015402 315138010001103001" | awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10)," ",$0);print}'

[..]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fnwine1500

I couldn't get either suggestion to work. But this seems to work

Code:

awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10),"          ",$0);print}' ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.dat

Note that this will fail if the same sequence of 10 characters happens to occur somewhere before position 16.
To illustrate:

Code:

$ echo "5123470112620F198451213732347011262015402      315138010001103001" | awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10),"          ",$0);print}'
51          0F198451213732347011262015402      315138010001103001

So this is not a reliable solution.

Quote:

The " " actually has 10 spaces in between the quotes

And those 10 spaces will be shown, if you use code tags, like I inserted into your post..

----

Try:

Code:

awk '{s=substr($0,from,len); gsub(/./," ",s); print(substr($0,1,from-1) s substr($0,from+len))}' from=26 len=10 ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.da

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-29-2016 at 03:23 PM..

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