AWK was made for what you're trying to do. I don't know AWK all that
well, but here's a very simple example that will produce a line-record
from the data you gave. This works with GAWK, and may or may not work
with pure AWK:
/easting/ { printf("rec=%d easting=%s ", rec, $2); }
/northing/ { printf("northing=%s ", $2); }
/elevation/ { printf("elevation=%s ", $2); }
/distance along surface/ { printf("dist=%s\n", $4); rec++; }
After creating the above as a file (call it "parse.awk"), you can parse
your data (assuming the data is in a file called "data.txt") like this:
$gawk -f parse.awk data.txt
which will produce the following:
rec=0 easting=661674.9375 northing=4035004.0000 elevation=968.8617
dist=15.9540
rec=1 easting=661683.7500 northing=4034946.7500 elevation=961.4768
dist=58.4077
where "rec" is the record number, and following is the rest of the data.
This code makes several assumptions like data ordering and so forth, SO
YOU SHOULDN'T USE THE ABOVE CODE in production but use it only as a
reference to write a more robust code.
Here's a code that's a little more robust but you should still customize
it for your data:
# Check to see whether we want to print the record, then print if we do.
function rec_chk() {
# If I have all the data for a record, print the record
if(easting && northing && elevation && dist) {
# Print the record
print_rec();
# Reset all data and increment the record counter
easting = northing = elevation = dist = "";
rec++;
}
}
# Print the record.
function print_rec() {
printf("%d %s %s %s %s\n", rec, easting, northing, elevation, dist);
}
# Data updates
/easting/ { easting=$2; rec_chk(); }
/northing/ { northing=$2; rec_chk(); }
/elevation/ { elevation=$2; rec_chk(); }
/distance along surface/ { dist=$4; rec_chk(); }
There is a lot of built-in functions if you want to do some math
operations or variable type conversions or whatever you can think of.
See `info gawk` under "functions" or "library functions" for more
information.
I hope that gets you started.
-Mark
PS: I usually just use PERL for something like this than AWK -- PERL has
more support, is more flexible, and I know it better than AWK! GAWK sure
does make simple parsing like this easier if you know how, though!
PPS: A friend of mine who went to Columbia tells me he took a class from
"A" (Prof. Alfred Aho) of "AWK"... =P How funny!
On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Dylan Beaudette wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> this might be a really simple question, but :
>
>
> i have a text file with multiple-line records in a format like this:
>
> ----------------------------
> easting: 661674.9375
> northing: 4035004.0000
> elevation: 968.8617
> distance along surface: 15.9540
>
> easting: 661683.7500
> northing: 4034946.7500
> elevation: 961.4768
> distance along surface: 58.4077
> -----------------------------
>
>
> I am familiar with single-line records, and work with them in AWK quite
> frequently. However, i have yet to come upon an elegant solution to
> parsing something like the above file, such that i can assign each
> field in a multi-line record to a unique variable. a solution in AWK
> would be ideal, but i am open to tackle this problem with something
> like python.
>
>
> any ideas?
>
> thanks!
>
> Dylan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> vox-tech mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
>
--
Mark K. Kim
AIM: markus kimius
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