UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a file with large number of records. Sample below:

123456789QWERT2U 2 erter
987123678ZXCVB6Y 5 7689
934567123GHJKUI4O 7
-
--
--

I want the 16th character in each record to be replaced with the below as follows;so 2 will become K, 6 will become O and 4 will become M.
0 }
1 J
2 K
3 L
4 M
5 N
6 O
7 P
8 Q
9 R

So, the records should look like:


123456789QWERTKU
987123678ZXCVBOY
934567123GHJKUIMO

---

How can i do that sort of patterns matching and replacement.

Thanks.

What have you tried so far?

One of your examples is different of the others.

934567123GHJKUI4O 7 -> "4" is the 16th char.
987123678ZXCVB6Y 5 7689 -> "6" is the 15th char.

I made it replace the 15th char, but if you want to replace the 16th just change substr's param from 14 to 15.

Code:

redoubtable@Tsunami ~ $ echo -e "987123678ZXCVB6Y 5 7689\n934567123GHJKUI4O 7\n123456789QWERT2U 2 erter"|perl -ne '@a = ("}","J","K","L","M","N","O","P","Q","R"); substr($_, 14, 1, $a[substr($_, 14, 1)]); print'
987123678ZXCVBOY 5 7689
934567123GHJKU}4O 7
123456789QWERTKU 2 erter
redoubtable@Tsunami ~ $

Assuming it is the 16th character you want to replace, here is one way of doing it using awk i.e. awk -f awkscriptfile file

Code:

BEGIN { split("} J K L M N O P Q R", lookup) }
{ print substr($0,1,15) lookup[substr($0,16,1) + 1] substr($0,17) }