Quick way to convert spaces in text file to tabs to copy to spreadsheet?
 

Hi.

I have a file with dates and then weights (kg). They are separated by a space.

i.e.:
2019-08-01 68.7

I'd like to copy this long list to a spreadsheet once in a while to show a graph of my weight and other peoples weights. Is there a quick method to do this?

Thanks.

tr, sed, awk, perl, python, ...

Start with the manpage for tr.

The answer is: yes. You can also implement it easily in bash.
But from your side: Which language/tool do you prefer? What did you try so far? Where did you stuck?

or

Depends on spreadsheet app. Excel and libreoffice as far as I know have the capability to select the delimiter i.e as a space, tab or comma etc or fixed width so conversion is probably not necessary.

So if the OP had made some effort .... :shrug:

Agree and concur.

Not so proficient with the Linux varieties of spreadsheets, but I know that one can import data and many times there's a preview of that data which shows, and allows you to change you delimiter so that you can get it right, while viewing the previews.

So just try this, and I would prefer to stay away from a bunch of text processing tools. I do not feel they are necessary.

Or, to be kinder about it. Have you already tried this, and found it to be flawed in some manner?

Calc will import the file fine checking 'space' as a delimiter.
Off Topic: I understand the rationale for asking someone who just joined what they have tried but IMO grilling a Contributing Member who has 3500+ posts is unnecessary. Just my 2 cents.

Hi EmaRsk. Thank you very much. Those are perfect!

Hi pan64. I'm not too fussed on the language. It's solved now anyway. Thanks.

Hi mjolnir. Yes, that's ideal. Thank you.

I would use unexpand(1). It should already be on your distro :)

hm. I have never heard about expand/unexpand, both can be implemented easily in awk/perl/python/whatever, still interesting that we have a ready-made tool for this.
something to learn again.

So basically a slightly helpful rtfm then, right?

Not very helpful at all.