I have a text file with content that look like this..

I need to change the contents so that the number between the commas (second column) is in sequence starting from whatever the number is on the first line. As shown below

I could probably hack a Java program to do this but is there a command or a regular expression in vi that could do this quickly?

I know in vi you could do things like :s%/3987/3988/g but that will replace everything with 3988. Any ideas?


Thanks

Try the `sort` command; perhaps something (off top of my head, and assuming that the number on the first line is the LOWEST of the numbers) like `sort -t , -u -k2 $filename > $new_filename` though you'll definitely want to look up the right syntax in the man page.

SVA

For example, you could:

1. split contents into 3 files [field1.out, field2.out, field3.out]
2. sort field2.out
3. merge field1.out, field2.out, field3.out

fairly quickly.

Wouldnt the sort command just sort the numbers? I dont just want to sort them i want them to be in sequence i.e. 5,3,4,7,9 to change to 5,6,7,8. Just sorting them would result in 3,4,5,7,9.

Thanks

Yes but how do i do it? Im not really proficient in shell scripting so an example would be helpfull

Not sure I understand what you asked here.. I can't see how 5,3,4,7,9 can be sorted to 5,6,7,8 no matter how you go about it.

The sort command sorts records in a file, not items in the record.

Why not try experimenting with what I gave you, provide us some feedback on what it did, and explain how what it did is not what you want.

Thanks,

Sasha

He's not very good at describing his request, I'm afraid,but
I believe what he WANTS is this:
with ugh being the file.


Cheers,
Tink

Yes thats exactly what i needed. Apologies my English is not very top class

So what exactly is happening there? is ugh the input or output file?

Thanks

What you really wanted was to have a sequence
in the second column, starting with the value of
the first row (discarding all values previously
in column two). What the awk script does is to
store the first value [if we're on the first line
(NR==1)], and then just keeps adding one to the
start value for any row we encounter, replacing
the value in column 2 ($2, which we initially read
in the first row) with the value of start, while
leaving column 1 and 3 intact. Really I should have
called the thing sequence rather than start to make
it clearer - but I only just crawled out of bed ;D



Input.



Cheers,
Tink

OOOOOhhhhhh! Ok! Now I see.

@ Tink: not bad for a chap who just got out of bed; thanks for decoding the topic/ desired output. I missed that one.

@ myself: learn some Awk to complement my Gawk.

@ the OP: there you go!

Heh. Thanks ;)

Always good to know the basics ... =}


Cheers,
Tink

I forgot to thank you all for the help.
The awk solution worked very well.

Thanks all for your help

Good stuff!

If this solves the issue, you can mark this thread [solved] if you haven't yet, by using "Thread Tools" near the top of the post.

Sasha