Line processing

jacobs.smith · January 30, 2012, 4:57pm

If I have a line say like this

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

I want column 16 to be moved into column 4 and the rest same, like this

1 2 3 16 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Using awk, I know that replacing $4 with $16 and typing all the column numbers will help. But, I have more than 100 columns and I can't type all of them. Is there an easy way to specify what column to copy into what and print the rest?

Thanks in advance

bartus11 · January 30, 2012, 5:08pm

Why would you need to type all the column numbers?

awk '{$4=$16;$16=""}1' file

pvamsikr · January 30, 2012, 5:12pm

Try this:

awk '{temp = $4; $4 = $16; $16 = temp} {print $0}' file

jacobs.smith · January 30, 2012, 5:23pm

Thanks this works. But, it even prints the 16th column too, which I don't want. How do I do it?

pvamsikr · January 30, 2012, 5:28pm

sorry, did not read your first thread clearly.. if you dont want to print 16th column, use this.. It same as the solution provided by "bartus11"

awk '{$4 = $16; $16 = ""} {print $0}' file