Script Help - put output in columns?

[Greg Stark_1]

I have a text file that looks like this:

UserA
DateA
UserB
DateB
UserC
DateC

I want to run a command against it to change it to this:

UserA DateA
UserB DateB
UserC DateC

Basically putting the data into 2 columns (one of user names, one of dates associated with each user name). Is this possible?

thanks again,
Greg

[Michael Schulte zur Sur · Accepted solution]

Hi,

sure, that's simple
awk '{l1=$0;getline;print l1" "$0;)}'

hth,

Michael

[Greg Stark_1]

Thanks, but I tried your suggestion and I got no output. It looks as tho there is only a close paren and not open. Is that correct?

[Greg Stark_1]

Sorry, worked afterall. I missed a space in the command.

Thanks,
Greg

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi Greg,

actually it is me to say sorry because I forgot to add the filename as parameter after the awk command.

thanks for the points,

Michael

[Mike Stroyan]

I think that learning to do the task with awk (or perl) will serve you better for future tasks because scripting languages are so flexible.

On the other hand, you can get the effect you want with simple options to the pr command.
pr -2tas' ' yourfile