UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi Anbu
Thanks for this lovely looking awk array
awk -F"," ' {
str=$1
for( i = 2 ; i <= NF - 7 ; ++i )
str=str "," $i
n=split($(NF-6),arr,":")
for( i = 1 ; i <= n ; ++i )
print str "," arr[n]
} ' file[/INDENT]
Thanks but unfortunately this doesn't work & I'm too much of a newbie to fix it. It nearly works but rather than putting the next course on each line, it just repeats the same course. Output is:

User Name,Password,ID,First Name,Last Name,Subject
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,PHYS4597
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,PHYS4597

etc etc

What I want is output that looks like
User Name,Password,ID,First Name,Last Name,Subject
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,XMLT1005
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,MATH2987
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,PHYS4597
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,FRNC3578
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,ITLN590
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,LATN3490
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,PHYS4597
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,,XMLT1001
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,XMLT1004
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,MATH2987


from input that looks like this (the input in a file hundreds of lines long - this is just the first few lines)

User Name,Password,ID,First Name,Last Name,Subject,Other,#User Type,City,#Email,#Some Field,#Another Field
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,XMLT1005:MATH2987:PHYS4597:FRNC3578:ITLN590:LATN3490,,,,,,
glik2398,xxxxxx,123456789,Gill,Likely,XMLT1001:XMLT1004:MATH2987:PHYS4597,,,,,,


Still pulling my hair out, but thankyou for trying to help.
-J.

Sorry. No good.

Code:

awk -F '[,:]' '{ for ( i=7, i <= NF i++) { printf "%s,%s,%s\n", $1, $2, $i } }'

The error message is:
awk: syntax error at source line 1
context is
{ for ( >>> i=7, <<<


Any ideas?
-the newbie!

Yes, it was as I said untested, and there was an obvious pair of typos in the for loop, still untested but should be ( I think ) correct now.

Code:

awk -F '[,:]' '{ for ( i=7; i <= NF; i++) { printf "%s,%s,%s\n", $1, $2, $i } }

Nearly!
It was having problems with the six trailing ,,,,,, so I have stripped these out with sed first.

But it is still is skipping the first subject. I think this is because of the delimiter.
jsmi3279,xxxxxx,123456789,John,Smith,XMLT1005:MATH2987:PHYS4597:FRNC3578:ITLN590:LATN3490,,,,,,

The output has only 5 lines for this user not six. It doesn't contain a line with the first subject XMLT1005

Thanks for your assistance!
-J

change the 7 to 6 in what I posted previously, I misread the input earlier.

It works! Wow that's brilliant.
Thank you so much for the help and for rekindling esteem for the awesome awk.

The final version for anyone who wants to know:

awk -F '[,:]' '{ for ( i=6; i <= NF; i++) { printf "%s,%s,%s\n", $1, $2, $i } }'

Cheers!
-J.

Code:

print str "," arr[i]