formatting columns

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi

I have a file that is several gigs in size and basically I want to change the format of it. Obviously I cannot go through it manually.

The file looks like this:

897	2
901	2
905	2
909	2
913	2
917	2
921	2
925	2
929	2
933	2
937	2
941	2
945	2
949	0
953	0
957	0
961	0
965	0
969	0
973	1
977	1
981	1
985	1
989	1
993	1
997	1
1001	1
1005	1
1009	1

I want the output so that it will look like this:

897  945  2
949  969  0
973  1009  1

basically compressing the file into something more simple. The initial file is tab separated and it would be great to have the output the same way.

Thanks

Kyle

2

This should do it based on your sample:

awk  '
    s"" != $2 {                  # s"" handles the case where $2 is 0 on the first record
            if( NR > 1 )
                printf( "%s\t%s\t%s\n", f, l, s );
            f = $1;
            s = $2;
            next;
    }

    { l = $1; }
    END { printf( "%s\t%s\t%s\n", f, $1, s ); }
' input-file >output-file
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