Report printing

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi. i am trying to print the contents of my text file with delimiter : separating them.

6:15:ABC ABD:ABB ABE:
2:20:AEE ABH:ACC AAA:

i have completed my header for the report but i am having problem with my contents. i am trying to read in the data with the code below.

{ while read 'num1:num2:alpha1:alpha2:'; do
print "%-12s%12d%12d%12d\n" "$num1" "$num2 "$alpha1" "$alpha2"
done } < $file

it tells me my

'num1:num2:alpha1:alpha2:'

not a valid identifier

2

Perhaps you need something more like:

while IFS=: read num1 num2 alpha1 alpha2 junk; do
  printf "%-12s%12d%12d%12d\n" "$num1" "$num2" "$alpha1" "$alpha2"
done < $file

Notes:

  • I missed where "$file" was set, but I presume it is
  • Changed "print" to "printf"
  • Added " after $num2
  • It's also useful to add "junk" after the last "while read" field, in case there are additional fields you don't care about, otherwise they become part of the last field read.
3

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the mistake as i typed it out instead of copying. $file was set already in my program. i get an error syntax error for my while line when i tried your code. it says read: 6:15:ABC ABD:ABB ABE: syntax error in expression ( error token is "6")

4

Please tell me which shell you are using (please don't tell me it's C-Shell), and paste your exact script and input file (if possible!)

edit: seems to be Bash:

$ strings $(which bash) | grep -i token
%s%s%s: %s (error token is "%s")

edit 2: You need to change the formatting from "%d" to "%s" - these are strings, not numbers.

5

Slight change to Scott's solution:

printf "%-12d%12d%12s%12s\n" "$num1" "$num2" "$alpha1" "$alpha2"

This is assuming that your actual data is as per the sample shown.
It's always better to use %s instead of %d when you are unsure about the data.

6

Hi. its bash that im using. the error is still the same after changing my code. the error seems to happen when i start reading the 1st line.

edit: Hi scott. May i know what do i do with the code that u have provided?

$ strings $(which bash) | grep -i token
%s%s%s: %s (error token is "%s")
7

We're not going to second guess what you've done. Please post the code.

edit: You need do nothing with that code. It was only to find in which shell the string "error token" could be found.

8

Hi. This is what i did.

declare -rx file="alphanum.txt
declare -i alpha1
declare -i alpha2
declare -i num1
declare -i num2

while IFS=: read num1 num2 alpha1 alpha2 junk; do
printf "%-12d%12d%12s%12s\n" "$num1" "$num2" "$alpha1" "$alpha2" 
done < $file

just found out what went wrong. i declare -i alpha1 and alpha2.

9

Sorry, I should also have asked that you to say what "$file" is set to, and post the contents for that file.

And there's no point in using %d unless you plan to format it specially, i.e. with leading zeros, so change those to %s.

10

Hi. Sorry. i left out my declaration. i have edited my code posted already.

11

Yes, please include all relevant code. It could save people time :wink:

And where would the closing quote to this be:

declare -rx file="alphanum.txt