Shell scripts for record Re format

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have few files from windows which are tab delimited or �|' delimited files.
I need to convert these files without any delimiter ( so in a way it would become variable length with no delimiter )
Can someone help me with the command in bourne shell scripts., ( I am trying with awk )
Thanks In Advance,

2

How do your code looks like?

Regards

3

Honestly , so far
I had been trying with command line Vi , Sed commands.
trying to put the code together now , I had from the forum , so looking for <tr> and <expand> too

4

To remove the pipe symbols:

tr -d '|' < FILE

To replace the pipe symbols with spaces:

tr '|' ' ' < FILE

To remove the tabs:

tr -d '\t' < FILE

To replace the tabs with spaces:

tr '\t' ' ' < FILE
5

Thanks for the Tips,

For a normal Situation , for e-g
Normal Data file
Field1<tab>Field2<tab>Field3 ,
Field1<tab>Field2<tab>Field3 ,
All the tabs will be removed and become a variable length data , after using tr -d '\t' < FILE
Field1Field2Field3 ,
Field1Field2Field3 ,
For a comma separated data file , the possibility of the comma appearing in the actual field value is higher for e-g

Field1,Field2,Field3
Field1,ABC,corporation,Field3

We can�t use <tr> to remove all the comma , Is there a way to distinguish the fields delimiters and the field value.

Please advice.

6

It could be possible only if there are some fixed conditions.
For eg. take your data.

Field1,Field2,Field3
Field1,ABC,corporation,Field3
  1. If you think Filed1 and field3 will never have cammas in them, then logically you need to remove the first and the last commas (or say last 5 commas). And this can be done.
Field1,ABC,corporation,Field3,Field4,Field5,Field6,Field7
  1. Or you can avoid those that come with in quotes (double " or single ' or some other character).
    Like
Field1,"ABC,corporation",Field3

Without any condition, how will you yourself decide which should not/be removed?

7

Sure , I agree. Let me check all the possible option.
Thanks for the reply.