Import ASCII 28 delimited text file

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have an ASCII 28 delimited text file(non-printable delimiter) with 4 columns along with the header.I need to open this text file in Excel or any other tool to view each column content.

Please help..

Thanks

2

Excel really hates nonprinting characters as separators... Even if you manage to get one of them into the clipboard, it refuses to let you paste it as a custom separator. If there are any characters you know your file doesn't contain, you can translate them into something usable.

tr '\034' '^' < inputfile > outputfile

to turn ascii 28's into ^'s for example.

3

Thanks Corona688.

This worked for my requirement.

Thanks

1 Like
4

Longhand using builtins only:-
OSX 10.7.5, default bash terminal...

Last login: Fri Feb  7 21:34:30 on ttys000
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # Create a file with ASCII 28 in it...
AMIGA:barrywalker~> printf "Barry\x1CWalker\x1CG0LCU\x1C" > /tmp/ascii28.txt
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # Check it has 19 characters...
AMIGA:barrywalker~> hexdump -C < /tmp/ascii28.txt
00000000  42 61 72 72 79 1c 57 61  6c 6b 65 72 1c 47 30 4c  |Barry.Walker.G0L|
00000010  43 55 1c                                          |CU.|
00000013
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # Now create a file with ASCII 28 only...
AMIGA:barrywalker~> printf "\x1C" > /tmp/unprintable
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # Read in both files...
AMIGA:barrywalker~> read -d '' text < /tmp/ascii28.txt
AMIGA:barrywalker~> read -d '' unprintable < /tmp/unprintable
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # This is the working part.
AMIGA:barrywalker~> text=$(printf "${text//$unprintable/,}")
AMIGA:barrywalker~> echo "$text"
Barry,Walker,G0LCU,
AMIGA:barrywalker~> # Done! Comma separated variable now... ;o)
AMIGA:barrywalker~> _
5

Interesting...

Why not use:

unprintable=$(printf '\x1C')

instead of:

printf "\x1C" > /tmp/unprintable
read -p '' unprintable < /tmp/unprintable

and, why use:

read -p '' text < /tmp/ascii28.txt

instead of:

read text < /tmp/ascii28.txt

or, more safely:

read -r text < /tmp/ascii28.txt

Is there some reason to specify that bash should prompt with an empty string that I'm missing?

1 Like
6

If you are using bash syntax, you could also use:

unprintable=$'\x1C'
7

Hi Don...

;o)

First this code.

unprintable=$(printf '\x1C')

I did except that I always save odd unprintables to a drawer of my choice and had never
seen that one so I used that method. It stems from AMIGA CLI shell scripting, boy is that
difficult and limited, as I could create a strange character without using the SET command.
I won't go any further with this part as is it not relevant to UNIX scripting.

Secondly.

read -p '' text < /tmp/ascii28.txt

DRAT! That must be __dyslexia__ setting in, "-p" should be "-d", not a prompt...
I must admit I did use read on its own but thought it better that "\n"
should be taken into account...

Thanks for pointing out my error...