Need Help to Edit multiple column of a file

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello Team,

I want to know if there is any one liner command , using which I can edit multiple column of a file.

input file input.txt (comma separated),

taran, 12.45, uttam, 23.40, babay
karan, 12.45, raju, 11.40, rahulg

I want to update, 2nd and 4th column,
but want all those column in output.

output,

taran, 12:45, uttam, 23:40, babay
karan, 12:45, raju, 11:40, rahul

if we can update at least one column, the also it would be helpful.
But I want all those column in output.

Many Thanks
Uttam Maji

2

Are you familiar with either ed or ex ...

3

As far as I can see you only want to substitute the period . with colon : in fields 2 and 4? If yes, try this

awk 'BEGIN { FS=OFS="," } { sub("\.",":",$2); sub("\.",":",$4); print }' file
4

But its giving Syntax error.

cat 2.txt

uttam,23.40,ravi,23.40,uttam
uttam,23.40,ravi,23.40,uttam
uttam,23.40,ravi,23.40,uttam
uttam,23.40,ravi,23.40,uttam

awk 'BEGIN { FS=OFS="," } { sub("\.",":",$2); sub("\.",":",$4); print }' 2.txt            
                                                    
awk: syntax error near line 1                                                   
awk: illegal statement near line 1                                              
awk: syntax error near line 1                                                   
awk: illegal statement near line 1
5

What OS and shell are you using? I would't expect the above code to work correctly, but I wouldn't expect it to generate syntax errors either.

Try the following instead:

awk 'BEGIN { FS=OFS="," } { sub("\\.",":",$2); sub("\\.",":",$4); print }' 2.txt

or, more simply (since it doesn't matter how many times the string containing the ERE is evaluated):

awk 'BEGIN { FS=OFS="," } { sub("[.]",":",$2); sub("[.]",":",$4); print }' 2.txt

If you are running this on a Solaris/SunOS system, change awk in either of these scripts to /usr/xpg4/bin/awk , /usr/xpg6/bin/awk , or nawk .

6

What is the result of running:

awk -V

Also, the awk script has a small typo - the "\." is interpreted as a plain ".", a second "\" is needed:

awk 'BEGIN { FS=OFS="," } { sub("\\.",":",$2); sub("\\.",":",$4); print }

(at least, "\\." is needed for gawk)

7 
awk  'NF{ sub(/\./,":",$2); sub(/\./,":",$4) }1' FS=, OFS=, infile
8

I tried all but tehy are giving syntax Error.

I am ysing korn shell. Solaries OS.

9

Actually, all are working, provided you take Don's advice into account.