awk question
 

Hello,

I have a tab separated text file which I'd like to separate by commas instead.

I use the following command:

The issue I have is the spaces also get separated as well as the tabs which mean that column data with spaces in them are split into different columns.

How do I just replace the TABs but not the spaces?

Thanks,

Make tab the input delimiter:

-F\\t

or

-v FS='\t'

simpler and more readable to not use awk though;

sed -e 's/\t/:/g' file

sed would be a good tool for that

awk

Thanks, ghostdog74

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work for me.

The result is the file still tab separated not comma separated.

Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks,

Hi,

These all work for me:

cat infile | tr "\t" ":"

sed 's/\t/:/g' infile --> acid_kewpie's solution from post #2

awk '{gsub("\t",":")}1' infile --> ghostdog74's solution from port #4

@OP if you want more "precise" answers, provide more information about your data files and the output you want. Help us to help yourself.

why do some people only ever read the last reply??? What was wrong with the two solutions i gave??