Creating String from words in a file

kooth · 09-15-2009, 10:41 PM

#!/bin/ksh

# Initialize the variable Result to NULL so that the logic below will work:

Result=

# Note: Hard-coding the file name here is not very reusable:

for Line in $(cat search.txt)
do
if [ -z "${Result}" ] # (If we haven't appending anything yet.)
then
Result="${Line}"
else
Result="${Result},${Line}" # (Add a comma and the newest line.)
fi
done

# Use the variable Result with another command:

echo "The resulting string is: [${Result}]."

DarkDraw · 09-16-2009, 12:03 AM

the most easy way is without script -- >

setenv LINE `cat search.txt | tr '\n' ','`
echo $LINE

and here you have your string in the variable.

jschiwal · 09-16-2009, 12:27 AM

Do you need to convert the lines into one long csv line or lines with 4 items. Be sure to test any solution you come up with with various inputs. Does it break with only 2 lines. Does it produce as comma at the end. What do you do about blank lines? Maybe the input file will have a trailing blank line. Maybe the last line won't end with a newline.

adrianno2 · 09-16-2009, 12:47 AM

or you can use php

PHP Code:



<?php 
$file = 'search.txt'; 
$content = file_get_contents($file); 
$pieces = array(); 
$pieces = explode("\n",$content); 
$count = count($pieces); 
 
for ($i = 0; $i <= $count; $i++) { 
  if $i != $count { 
      echo $pieces[$i].","; 
    } 
    else { 
      echo $pieces[$i]; 
    } 
} 
?>

griswald · 09-16-2009, 04:27 AM

string=`awk '{printf "%s,",$0}' search.txt|sed 's/,$//'`

Cheers,
Graham

archtoad6 · 09-16-2009, 05:47 AM

Guys, this is clearly homework. It does nothing good for the poster to give the answer, instead of guiding him/her to one. I was going to rant at those who broke this unofficial LQ rule, until I looked at the answers given. -- Unless I am mistaken, all are either in the wrong language (I hope deliberately), or broken.

I see at least 2 simple paths to a solution w/in the parameters set:
1. A sed script which uses the 'N' command to access the newline between lines & then convert it to a comma.
http://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/sed.html

2. This can be done in bash w/ 2 relatively simple commands. Some hints:

echo is for variables.
cat is for files.
What is the difference between
Code:
```
cat $VAR
```
&
Code:
```
cat "VAR"
```
???
tr is your friend.

Finally, please everyone, no more spoon fed answers!

rz70 · 09-16-2009, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deepakthaman

Hi i have a file called search.txt

Which contains text like

Car
Bus
Cat
Dog

Now i have to create a string from the file which should look like

Car,Bus,Cat,Dog

( appending , is essential part) String must be stored in some variable so i can pass it as argument to some other command.

Thnx in advance

1)
tr '\012' ',' < search.txt

variable=`tr '\012' ',' < search.txt`

2)

awk -v ORS=, '{print $0 }' < search.txt

variable=`awk -v ORS=, '{print $0 }' < search.txt`

3)
variable=`echo \`cat search.txt\` | tr ' ' ,`

solarkash · 09-16-2009, 05:15 PM

How about:

Code:

cat filename | xargs | sed 's, ,\,,g'