Working with Tab-Delimited files

shiroh_1982 · 05-31-2006, 01:59 AM

I have a tab-Delimited file:
Eg:
'test' file contains:
a<tab>b<tab>c<tab>....

Based on certain condition, I wanna increase the number of lines of this file.How do I do that
Eg:
If some value in the database is 1 then one line in 'test' file is fine..
If some value in the database is 2 then 2 lines in the 'test' file is required with the second line not matching the first line(this is req since i wanna perform a replace command later(Eg: replace 'a' with '1')

Eg:
'test' file will then contain:
a<tab>b<tab>c<tab>....
d<tab>e<tab>f<tab>....

i need to simulate this using a shell scripts..kindly help me..

chrism01 · 05-31-2006, 02:59 AM

Accessing a DB from shell is a bit fiddly, but when you've done that you can just append a line to the file each time eg
line=a<tab>b<tab>c
echo $line >>filename

shiroh_1982 · 06-02-2006, 02:47 AM

Thanks for ur reply Chrish, however the result i got was this:

<Empty line>
a<space>b<space>c..

Now im not sure if that space qualifies for a <tab>..do we have to convert it using tr or sumtng..lemme know..

timmeke · 06-02-2006, 02:58 AM

Try:

Code:

echo -e "a\tb\tc" >> file

Horizontal tab (\t) is often used in special way by the shell (ie filename completion) and hence may not
be translated to the proper ASCII char.
See man echo for details.

Check out also:

Code:

man ascii
man iso-8859-1
man echo

shiroh_1982 · 06-02-2006, 03:53 AM

Thanks timmeke..worked fine..But another question..

Suppose there is req ie:
a<Tab>b<Tab>c<Tab>d<space>e<Tab>

Then how do we go ahead with this...for tab we use \t..is there anytng for space??? i check man echo didnt find anytng

Kindly lemme know

timmeke · 06-02-2006, 04:08 AM

\s is space, but doesn't seem to work with "echo". However, you can just type spaces too. Just don't forget the double (or single) quotes.
Example:

Code:

echo -e "a\tb\tc\td e\tf"

works on my box...