Splitting file based on first column's first character and length

user_15225806 0
Viewed 119

I want to split a .txt into two, with one file having all lines where the first column's first character is "A" and the total of characters in the first column is 6, while the other file has all the rest. Searching led me to find the awk command and ways to separate files based on the first character, but I couldn't find any way to separate it based on column length.

I'm not familiar with awk, so what I tried (to no avail) was awk -F '|' '$1 == "A*****" {print > ("BeginsWithA.txt"); next} {print > ("Rest.txt")}' FileToSplit.txt.

Any help or pointers to the right direction would be very appreciated.

EDIT: As RavinderSingh13 reminded, it would be best for me to put some samples/examples of input and expected output.

So, here's an input example:

#FileToSplit.txt#
2134|Line 1|Stuff 1
31516784|Line 2|Stuff 2
A35646|Line 3|Stuff 3
641|Line 4|Stuff 4
A48029|Line 5|Stuff 5
A32100|Line 6|Stuff 6
413|Line 7|Stuff 7

What the expected output is:

#BeginsWith6.txt#
A35646|Line 3|Stuff 3
A48029|Line 5|Stuff 5
A32100|Line 6|Stuff 6

#Rest.txt#
2134|Line 1|Stuff 1
31516784|Line 2|Stuff 2
641|Line 4|Stuff 4
413|Line 7|Stuff 7
awk linux split
3 Answers

What you want to do is use a regex and length function. You don't show your input, so I will leave it to you to set the field separator. Given your description, you could do:

awk '/^A/ && length($1) == 6 { print > "file_a.txt"; next } { print > "file_b.txt" }' file

Which would take the information in file and if the first field begins with "A" and is 6 characters in length, the record is written to file_a.txt, otherwise the record is written to file_b.txt (adjust names as needed)

user_34221020

A non-regex awk solution:

awk -F'|' '{print $0>(index($1,"A")==1 && length($1)==6 ? "file_a.txt" : "file_b.txt")}' file
user_5482250

With your shown samples, could you please try following. Since your shown samples are NOT started from A so I have not added that Logic here, also this solution makes sure 1st field is all 6 digits long as per shown samples.

awk -F'|' '$1~/^[0-9]+$/ && length($1)==6{print > ("BeginsWith6.txt");next} {print > ("rest.txt")}' Input_file

2nd solution: In case your 1st field starts from A following with 5 digits(which you state but not there in your shown samples) then try following.

awk -F'|' '$1~/^A[0-9]+$/ && length($1)==6{print > ("BeginsWith6.txt");next} {print > ("rest.txt")}'  Input_file

OR(better version of above):

awk -F'|' '$1~/^A[0-9]{5}$/{print > ("BeginsWith6.txt");next} {print > ("rest.txt")}' Input_file
user_58665800
Related