Help with column specification

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi I am working on a program that reads a file with multiple columns and was curious how to specify the columns to be manipulated in the command line.
For example the file may look something like:

 
Column1   Column2   Column3   Column4   Column5  Column6
AC           82542      3525       GG           154124   541556

I would like to be able to type either "column1" or "column4" in the command line and have they print out the contents of the column put in as input as well as the contents of the two columns that follow.

Given the file above and typing "column4" on the command line, I would like the output to be:

GG 154124 541556

I would greatly appreciate all help.
Thanks a lot.
Drossy

2

Hi,
Guessing you'd need something like this...

  COLUMN_NO=$1
  
  case  $COLUMN_NO in
  column_1 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6' } < yourfilename
       ;;
  column_2 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $2, $3, $4, $5, $6' } < yourfilename
       ;;
  column_3 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $3, $4, $5, $6' } < yourfilename
       ;;
   column_4 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $4, $5, $6' } < yourfilename
       ;;
  column_5 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $5, $6' } < yourfilename
       ;;
  column_6 )
      awk -F [ ' '] ' { print $6' } < yourfilename
             ;;      
    esac
fi