[SOLVED] reformatting a file with columns using AWK
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fieldname1,fieldname2,fieldname3,fieldname4,fieldname5
val11,val21,val31,val41,val51
val12,val22,val32,val42,val52
val13,val23,val33,val43,val53
val14,val24,val34,val44,val54
etc.
i don't know how to "transpose" the data. maybe it would be better to use a different kind of print statement in my AWK script? or maybe easier to write a another AWK script to do it, idk?
I am curious, of the several hundred search responses, either on google or even just here in LQ, which ones did you try before deciding that your data was too unique for any of the solutions?
When I have to do things like this, I turn to the perl programming language. Which grew out of "awk" when a guy named Larry Wall decided that he could improve it. It is definitely a "quirky" language, but extremely powerful – especially for any sort of "text-file processing."
One important thing that this language has, which "awk" does not, is a vast(!) library of packages (called "CPAN") which do "most of the things that you really need to do" right out of the box.
I can sympathise with the OP - you almost need to know the answer to the question to be able to frame the query.
The most important part is to split the task into simple steps.
print header, print values, loop on input ... print etc.
At the end you will get something similar to post #4, which is a relatively compact implementation.
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