topic Re: inserting delimiters in Operating System - HP-UX

inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:55:46 GMT

Hi Guys,

I need advise on how to format strings in a specific way.

I have this data extracted from the passwd file

user1,YNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
user2,YNNNNNNYYNNNNNNNNNNN

field1 = username
field2 = user flags in the descriptions field

from the above format I wanted to create this output:

user1,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N
user2,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,Y,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N

TIA!

Re: inserting delimiters

Hein van den Heuvel — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:43:15 GMT

$ perl -lpe'($u,$f)=split /\W/; $_=join q(,),$u,split(//,$f)'

-lpe = loop trhough input and print $_ with newline

First split on non-Word (The , and the new-line) saving username in $u, flags in $f.

The re-join with commas, that username, and the flags where those are re-split on 'nothing'.

Enjoy,
Hein.

Re: inserting delimiters

Dennis Handly — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:43:25 GMT

I you have exactly 20 and you don't want to write a script to break them up, you can use sed:
================================================
sed -e 's/$.*,$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$/\1\2,\3,\4,\5,\6,\7,\8,\9,/' \
-e 's/$.*,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$$.$/\1\2,\3,\4,\5,\6,\7,\8,\9,/' \
-e 's/$.*,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,$$.$$.$$.$$.$/\1\2,\3,\4,\5/'

Re: inserting delimiters

OFC_EDM — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:00:02 GMT

Here's one example at an easier level.
Disadvantage is it calls multiple sed statements. But it's easier to understand if you're just starting out.

cat testdata
user1,YNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
user2,YNNNNNNYYNNNNNNNNNNN

cat testdata | tr "," " " | sed -e 's/Y/Y /g' | sed -e 's/N/N /g' | sed -e 's/ /,/g' | sed -e 's/$,//g'

Output
user1,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N
user2,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,Y,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N

Approach
Decided a space will be the final Field delimeter.
So replaced that first comma with a space
tr "," " "
Then put a space beside all Y's and N's
sed -e 's/Y/Y /g' | sed -e 's/N/N /g'
Then replaced all spaces with a comma
sed -e 's/ /,/g'
And then finally removing the comma that would be left at the end of the string from the previous step
sed -e 's/,$//g'

Re: inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:20:51 GMT

Well done guys! Many, many thanks for the prompt replies. I really need to get my scripting level up more.

These options are superb!

Thanks again!

Re: inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:29:15 GMT

Thanks very much for the explanations KU. You deserve more that 10pts for this. :)

Re: inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:32:31 GMT

Also to Hein, though I'm a newbie's newbie when it comes to perl scripting. Appreciate it! it'll be my first 'hard' script to understand with perl.

Re: inserting delimiters

Steven Schweda — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:48:44 GMT

> Disadvantage is it calls multiple sed
> statements.

It doesn't need to. Multiple "-e" options
should do the job with one "sed".

Of these two:

> [...] 's/$,//g'
> [...] 's/,$//g'

the second one works better. And is "tr"
really needed?

bash$ echo 'user1,YNNNNNNNNN' | \
sed -e 's/,/ /' -e 's/Y/Y /g' -e 's/N/N /g' -e 's/ /,/g' -e 's/,$//g'
user1,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N

Re: inserting delimiters

Dennis Handly — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:13:36 GMT

>Thanks very much for the explanations

I can explain my regular expressions:
1) It captures everything up to the first comma and puts it back.
2) It then captures 8 characters and puts each back followed by a ",".
3) Since \# only works for 1..9, it does 8 more, after first accepting the first 8.
4) Then it does the final 4 after accepting the first 16.

Re: inserting delimiters

Steven Schweda — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:43:24 GMT

> [...] Closing thread now

Ha! As if that could stop me...

bash$ echo 'user1,YNNNNNNNNN' | \
sed -e 's/,/ /' -e 's/$[NY]$/\1 /g' -e 's/ /,/g' -e 's/,$//g'
user1,Y,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N,N

Re: inserting delimiters

Hein van den Heuvel — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:43:45 GMT

My solution is best explained by taking out all shortcuts:

$ perl -lpe'($u,$f)=split /\W/; $_=join q(,),$u,split(//,$f)'

Really is...

while ($line = ) {
($user, $flags) = split (/\W/, $line);
@letters = split(//, $flags);
$new_line = join ',' , $user, @letters;
print $new_line, "\n";
}

Hein.

Re: inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:57:29 GMT

appreciate your enthusiasm Steven! I picked up on your advice :)
Thanks for the notes Hein! Will likely to play and consider it in the code too

Cheers!

Re: inserting delimiters

Dennis Handly — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:07:15 GMT

>Steven: As if that could stop me...
>echo 'user1,YNNNNNNNNN' | \
sed -e 's/,/ /' -e 's/$[NY]$/\1 /g' -e 's/ /,/g' -e 's/,$//g'

It is obvious this isn't going to work if the user name is like "YESNO".

I'm also not sure why you want to change to spaces then back?
Note: the "g" in 's/,$//g' is useless.

Re: inserting delimiters

cam9269 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:48:17 GMT

i really, really appreciate all the inputs! :)

Re: inserting delimiters

Dennis Handly — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:24:12 GMT

You can also use awk. Unfortunately I can't get split to work there with an empty RE.
awk -F, '
{
printf $1 ","
for (i=1; i < 20; ++i)
printf substr($2,i,1) ","
print substr($2,20,1)
} '