awk script to call another script based on second column entry

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi

I have a text file (Input.txt) with two column entries separated by tab as given below:

aaa  str1
bbb  str2
cccccc  str3
dddd  str4
eee  str3
ssss  str2
sdf  str3
hhh  str1
fff  str2
ccc  str3
.....
.....
.....

My problem is, I want to write an awk script (say FirstScript) which will call another script (say SecondScript)which will return a string if a match of "str3" is found in the second column. After matching, the string returned by the second script will be written in the third column separated by a tab. If no match is found, the string from the first column will be copied to the corresponding row in the third column.

The desired output OUTPUT.TXT :

aaa  str1  aaa
bbb  str2  bbb
cccccc  str3   xxx
dddd  str4  dddd
eee  str3  yyy
ssss  str2  ssss
sdf  str3  zzz
hhh  str1  hhh
fff  str2  fff
ccc  str3   xyz
.....
.....
.....

In the output file, OUTPUT.TXT

cccccc str3 xxx
eee str3 yyy
sdf str3 zzz
ccc str3 xyz

Here the input to the SecondScript are cccccc, eee, sdf and ccc respectively for each row. xxx, yyy, zzz and xyz are returned by the SecondScript.

Please help me.

Thanks in advance.:slight_smile:

2

Please use code tags as required by forum rules!

Any attempts/ideas/thoughts from your side? Your strategy is not too clear. Why the "two script" approach? Why a .sh (shell) script to be called from within awk ? How should the desired output look like?

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