Fixing Record Length in a File

[Michael Treacy]

I have a file with individual records with a length of 13187, which I need to truncate to 12701 with a script. AWK can't handle it -
Any ideas ?

[KapilRaj]

Sorry we will need some more info ...

I am aware of awk can not handle more than "n" number of fields ?. I use cut if you are up to getting a number of fields

Kaps

[Scott Palmer_1 · Accepted solution]

not sure if this will work or not, but it is off the top of my head

cat file | cut -c 1-12701 > newfile

[Scott Palmer_1]

not sure if this will work or not, but it is off the top of my head

cat file | cut -c 1-12701 > newfile

Regards

Scott

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Well, if you insist upon a script (and you are already familiar with awk) then use gawk, the Gnu version of awk. It does not have awk's 3000 char hard record lerngth and is a superset of standard awk.

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Gnu/gawk-3.1.3/

Plan B (actually, this would be my Plan A): Use Perl.

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

What we need to know for whatever solution: are these records fixed width each on a seperate line or does the original file have no line endings at all?

in the latter case, cut won't work, and awk will not be very handy. you need either C or perl

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

[Michael Treacy]

Thanks for all your help...
I needed a quick solution and cut seems to do the job...
I'll have to learn perl or download GAWK for a long term solution

THANKS !!!