parsing file based on characters/bytes

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a datafile that is formatted as fixed.
I know that each line should contain 880 characters.
I want to separate the file into 2 files, one that has lines with 880 characters and the other file with everything else.
Is this possible ?

2

Yes,
please post a small representative sample of the input data and an example of the expected output.

3

Rather than 880 characters, perhaps simpler to see/explain with 8. So, if the following input file:

AAAAAAAA
BBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBB
AAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAA
BBBBB

Thus, you want to create two files, selecting on if '8' characters. Therefore you will get file1 with the 3 A records all at 8 characters, and file2 with the 3 B records with lengths not 8 characters.

Is that correct?

4

example...any line that has 50 chars goes in one file, everything else goes in the other

HEADER
12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
123456   John      Doe        1 Main St       asdw
789012   John      Doe      22 Main St      xcdf 
345678   John      Doe        1 Main St       fgty
901234   John      Doe        1 Main St       gg
567890   John      Doe        1 Main St       dety
1122337   John      Doe        1 Main St       lgky
445566   John      Doe        1 Main St       oprd
778899   John      Doe        1 Main St         kgit
EOF


12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
123456   John      Doe        1 Main St       asdw
345678   John      Doe        1 Main St       fgty
567890   John      Doe        1 Main St       dety
445566   John      Doe        1 Main St       oprd


HEADER
789012   John      Doe      22 Main St      xcdf 
901234   John      Doe        1 Main St       gg
1122337   John      Doe        1 Main St       lgky
778899   John      Doe        1 Main St         kgit
EOF

---------- Post updated at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:06 AM ----------

joeyg...........you are correct

5

The basic premise is:

echo abcdef | awk 'length==6{print}'
abcdef
6

how do I pass in the contents of the datafile ?

7 
awk '{if(length==50) print > "file1"; else print > "file2";}' data.txt
8

cat works to pass in the contents for this....
cat data.txt | awk 'length==19{print}'

how do I pass in the contents for this statement...?

{if (length() == 880)
print > "valid.file";
else
print > " invalid.file"
}

---------- Post updated at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:33 PM ----------

that works....thanks!

9 
cat data.txt | awk 'length==19{print}'

You don't really need to do like this. Better way is:

awk 'length==19{print}' data.txt

Also look at my earlier post# 7. data.txt is highlighted there. Same as above.

10

works for me....thank you !