CONVERTING A COMMA DELIMITED FILE TO FIXED LENGTH FILE

[MBacc]

Is there a command that will convert a COMMA DELIMITED FILE (CSV) to a fixed length file in UNIX?

[James R. Ferguson]

HI:

Given a file like this:

"a","b","c"
"aa","bb","cc"
"AaA","BbB","CcC"

I assume that (for whatever reason) you want to pad out with trailing spaces. Then you could do (for example to make 40-character records) is:

# perl -ple '$_.= "-" x (40-length($_))' file

Regards!

...JRF...

[MBacc]

Let me clarify my question.. Is there a command that will convert a COMMA DELIMITED FILE (CSV) to a fixed column length file in UNIX?

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again):

> Let me clarify my question.. Is there a command that will convert a COMMA DELIMITED FILE (CSV) to a fixed column length file in UNIX?

What's wrong with the *command* I wrote?

Substitute whatever value you want for '40' to gain the desired fixed line length.

...JRF...

[MBacc]

I did try the command but it is not lining up each field.

Example: I have a file with 4 fields I want the starting position in the same position.

Current file:
12121,XXX,ZZZZZ,Z
1212,XX,ZZZZ,Z

The results I would like is:

12121,XXX,ZZZZZ,Z
1212 ,XX ,ZZZZ ,Z

[OldSchool]

so you want each column to be of fixed length? If so, are all columns the same length (ie, 4 columns each 20 wide), or can they be different (ie col1 is 10, col2 is 25 and so on...)?

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again):

Oh, OK. How about this (adjust the field widths as necessary):

# perl -ne 'chomp;@F=split /,/;printf "%-12s,%-12s,%-12s\n",@F' file

Regards!

...JRF...

[Dennis Handly]

>The results I would like is: 12121,XXX,ZZZZZ,Z

Typically if you have fixed fields, you don't need the commas.

[Frank de Vries]

You could try the command
'tr'

Otherwise as the master said
some handy oneliners
with perl or sed or awk.

google is your best friend :°)