Handling embedded double quotes within column data

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a text file where each field is enclosed in double quotes and separated by a comma.
But in certain rows we have embedded double quotes within column data

For e.g

"""TRUSPICE CENTRE""        CLAYTON      AU"

The above value is for a single column but there are embedded quotes within it - which is - ""TRUSPICE CENTRE""
How do I handle this?

I need to remove such embedded quotes if it is present and retain the enclosed quotes.

So the output I need is:

"TRUSPICE CENTRE        CLAYTON      AU"
2

Hello abhilashnair,

Please use code tags for commands/codes you are using in your posts. Please refer the forum rules in following link.

Following code may help you in same.

awk '{gsub(/\"\"/,X,$0);print}' Input_file

Output will be as follows.

"TRUSPICE CENTRE CLAYTON AU"

EDIT: Adding a solution with sed also.

sed 's/\"\{2\}//g'  Input_file

Thanks,
R. Singh

3

Or, since there is nothing special about double quotes in an RE and double quotes don't need to be escaped inside single quotes:

sed 's/""//g' file

or:

awk '{gsub(/""/, X, $0);print} file

or even:

awk 'gsub(/""/, "")+1' file