How to generate a pipe ( | ) delimited file?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

:)Hi Friends,

I have certain log files extracted. I want it to be converted in pipe ( | ) delimited file. How do i do it?

E.g.

Account Balance : 123456789 Rs O/P (Account Balance: | 123456789 Rs)
Account Balance (Last) > 987654321 Rs O/P (Account Balance (Last) | 987654321 Rs)
Last update = 21/09/2008 5.30 PM O/P (Last update = | 21/09/2008 | 5.30 | PM)

:eek:Now the real complication is, it can be anything apart from above mentioned example. So it would be great help if you explain the script a bit so that I can write it as I want.

Is it possible?
If yes,
Requesting you to guide me to write a "Simple" script.
Wold appreciate if you explain it briefly as well :stuck_out_tongue:

Bye
Anushree

2

Usually you can use something like 'sed -e "s/[:>]/|/g" -e "s/=/= |/g" filename' but your "/2008 | 5.30 | PM" can't be anchored since it doesn't follow any replacement rules. Maybe somebody can whip up a better example if you provide more elaborate replacement rules...

3

what's your rules?
If you do not have rules, nobody can do it.

4

How are the fields delimited in the file?

If the separator is any of the :, >, and =, use awk, with FS set to a pattern that matches all three:

awk -F '[:>=]' '
   BEGIN { OFS = "|" }
         { $1 = $1; print }
' LOGFILE
5

existing delimiter is "Sapce"

6 
$ cat buf | tr -s ' ' '|'
Account|Balance|:|123456789|Rs|O/P|(Account|Balance:|123456789|Rs)
Account|Balance|(Last)|>|987654321|Rs|O/P|(Account|Balance|(Last)|987654321|Rs)
Last|update|=|21/09/2008|5.30|PM|O/P|(Last|update|=|21/09/2008|5.30|PM)

Is that what you want ?