a really tough (at least for me) colum data file missing value problem

atjurhs · 12-18-2012, 04:46 PM

markush, I could get the perl script to run on some files, but not on others and I couldn't see what the difference between the ones that worked and the ones that didn't

allend, so far your sed script has worked on all the files I run

I just had to figure out the character count to my bad column

grail, I can do a little awk, a little sed, and a little bash, this was the first time I tried perl and wasn't to lucky. I'm a little skitzy about adding another scripting language.

chrism01 · 12-18-2012, 05:15 PM

Can you post an example that does work and one that doesn't?

atjurhs · 12-18-2012, 07:52 PM

I work (for very little pay) for the AmericanRedCross, and in that file there is personal information of people who support us, so the file is on a protected LAN, and I'm not supposed to take any files off of it. I could get in big trouble, sorry, but you guys are being a huge help, and I wouldn't be able to do my work without your help!

Tabitha

grail · 12-19-2012, 01:49 AM

So make a mock file of the same format with bogus data, but duplicates the issues.

Also here is an awk for you although it messes with the formatting on the lines that need changing:

Code:

awk 'NF == 4{for(i=NF;i>=1;i--)if(i+1==2)$(i+1)=0;else$(i+1)=$i}1' OFS="\t" file

chrism01 · 12-19-2012, 07:16 AM

This

Quote:

So make a mock file of the same format with bogus data, but duplicates the issues.

exactly