Question about awk scripting

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Input file :

12345|12345|12345|12345
 12345|12345|12|13|12345
 12345|12345|1|234|12345
 12345|12345|12345|12345

Output :

12345|12345|12345|12345
 12345|12345|12 13|12345
 12345|12345|1 234|12345
 12345|12345|12345|12345

Change is : If the string 13 to 17 contains any | symbol then it needs to change it to " " (SPACE). I have tried the below and confused.

cat testfile | awk ' { sub(/\|/," ",substr($0,13,17) ; print $0 } '

Error : The third parameter in the sub is unchangeable.

Could anyone please advise , how to change this using awk or something..

Your advise would be great help for me.

Thanks,
Nanthu.

2

So the fields that does not require substitution (pipe to blank space) will have length >= 5?

4

Hi,

The data from position 25 to 30 should not contain | as | is the delimiter. Hence the if the position 25 to 30 contain |, we just want to replace it with SPACE.

I hope that I am clear.

Regards,
Nandy.

5

Hi, try:

awk '{print $1,$2,(NF>4)?$3" "$4:$3,$NF}' FS=\| OFS=\| file

----

Please start a new thread for this

6

Hi,

Agree but I do not want to print it rather I want to get update in the file. I meant file content should be changed as desired.

Please assist and Thanks indeed for your quick responses.

Regards,
Nandy.

7

Try redirecting it to a new file

awk '{print $1,$2,(NF>4)?$3" "$4:$3,$NF}' FS=\| OFS=\| file > newfile

--
and if successful you could try replacing the old file with the modified version...

awk '{print $1,$2,(NF>4)?$3" "$4:$3,$NF}' FS=\| OFS=\| file > newfile && mv newfile file
8 
 
awk '{FIELDWIDTHS = "12 5 100"} {gsub(/\|/, " ", $2)}1' file > file.tmp && mv file.tmp file

---------- Post updated at 02:28 AM ---------- Previous update was at 02:26 AM ----------

for 25 to 30,

awk '{FIELDWIDTHS = "24 6 100"} {gsub(/\|/, " ", $2)}1' file > file.tmp && mv file.tmp file
9

Hi,

Just need clarification here,

  1. What is the purpose mentioning 1 after gsub {gsub(/\|/, " ", $2)}1'
  2. Cant i do without FIELDWIDTH because i have more than 190 columns in my datafile.
  3. Cant i use substr as target in gsub/sub function gsub(/\|/," ",substr($0,13,17))

---------- Post updated at 08:55 AM ---------- Previous update was at 04:46 AM ----------

Hi,

I am not getting the result, please look at what i tried.

EMP|IX28|Mordasini |Luca      |IX|
EMP|IX29|NAN|THA |J|rgen    |IX|
EMP|IX30|Ke|s       |Peter     |IX|
EMP|IX31|Mayer     |Bernard   |IX|
EMP|IX32|Ohnacker |Martin    |IX|
EMP|IX33|Pankratz  |Ewald     |IX|
EMP|IX34|Seitz      |Matthias  |IX|
EMP|IX35|Straub    |Michael   |IX|
EMP|IX36|von Alkier|Jacqueline|IX|
EMP|IX37|Wu         |Qin Jane  |IX|

The above highlighted data | symbol should be remvoed. Hence i have issued,

 
cat TESTFILE2 | awk ' BEGIN { FIELDWIDTHS = "4 5 11 11 3"} { gsub(/\|/," ",$3) }1'  FS=\| OFS=\|> TESTFILE3

But output comes adjusted

 
EMP|IX28|Mordasini |Luca  IX 
EMP|IX29|NAN|THA |J|rgen  IX 
EMP|IX30|Ke|s |Peter  IX 
EMP|IX31|Mayer |Bernard  IX 
EMP|IX32|Ohnacker |Martin  IX 
EMP|IX33|Pankratz |Ewald  IX 
EMP|IX34|Seitz |Matthias  IX 
EMP|IX35|Straub |Michael  IX 
EMP|IX36|von Alkier|Jacqueline|IX|
EMP|IX37|Wu        |Qin Jane  |IX|

Questions :

  1. $3 should represent 3rd field ?
  2. There are pipe as column delimeter but someother | is replacing.

Please assist

Regards,
Nandy

10

Give this a try:

awk '{x=substr($0,10,10); gsub(/\|/," ",x); print substr($0,0,10), x, substr($0,20)}' OFS="" file