Extract data into file with specific field specs

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

:confused: I have a tab delimited file that I need to extract data from and into a file with specific field specs. Each field has to be a certain amount of characters. So, the name field (from delimited file) might have only 15 characters but needs to be 25 (in new file) so I need to insert spaces to fill the remaining characters. But each name is going to be a different size so a different amount of spaces needs to used. Does anyone have an idea of how this might be accomplished?
Thanks in advance.

2

its easier to see, then to imagine what kind of data you are working with.. but awk and printf should be able to get you going with the pre determined field widths

3

Please state your Operating System, preferred unix shell, and provide a sample of the input data (making any field delimiters emphatically clear), and a clear matching sample of the the required output data.

4

Operating system = AIX, Shell = ksh.

Input data example:

463XXXXXXXXXXXX6<tab>4XXXX9<tab>LIXXX X WXXXXR 4XXX W 4XXX S XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX UT 84XXX USA 0 Y15XXX3

Output Example:

46XXXXX002XXXXX64XXXX9LXXXA X WXLXXR 4XXX W 4XXX S XXXX XXXX XXX XX 84XXX USA 0 Y15XXX3

There's no delimeter just an exact specification of the number of characters per field. Basically they want the name field from position 23 to 57 and the Add1 field to be from 58 to 92 etc..

---------- Post updated at 11:26 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:25 AM ----------

sry not a very good job with the examples...

5

The numbers 23-57 and 58-92 bear no relation to the data example.
Please take time to think about the problem.

6

Thanks for your help trey85stang that gave me a good starting point. Thanks the critique of my posts methyl you were very helpful...