How to search for blank fields in a text file from a certain position?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Sample txt file :

OK00001111112|
OK00003443434|skjdaskldj
OK32812983918|asidisoado
OK00000000001|
ZM02910291029|sldkjaslkjdasldjk

what would be the shell script to figure out the blank space (if any) after the pipe sign?

2

Your sample input doesn't appear to have any spaces or tabs after the vertical bars. But, the code:

awk -F '|' '$2 ~ /[[:blank:]]/' file.txt

when file.txt contains:

OK00001111112|
OK00003443434|skjdaskldj
OK32812983918|asidisoado
OK00000000001|
ZM02910291029|sldkjaslkjdasldjk
abc| space
def|	tab
ghi|12 34space
jkl|56	78tab

produces the output:

abc| space
def|	tab
ghi|12 34space
jkl|56	78tab

Is this what you were trying to do?

3

yeah, I noticed it now that there is no blank space after the | in sample.txt file.

I wish to print the rows which have only one column (ie. missing 2nd column after | )

output should look like :

Blank Records found : 
OK00001111112| 
OK00000000001|
4

There is a big difference between "blank" and "empty". To print lines where field 2 is empty, try:

awk -F '|' '$2==""' file.txt
1 Like
5

Thanks a Ton Don!.. It worked..