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From: jlp@cbnewsh.att.com (jon.peticolas)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Is AWK up to this application?
Message-ID: <1990Oct5.163904.7824@cbnewsh.att.com>
Date: 5 Oct 90 16:39:04 GMT
References: <1661@wjvax.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 47

From article <1661@wjvax.UUCP>, by mario@wjvax.UUCP (Mario Dona):
  
> Does anyone know of a way of extracting information from a text file
> which contains variable length fields, and outputting it in a different
> format?  For example, I have a text file which contains names and
> addresses as shown below.
  
> John Doe           1563 Meadow Lane         San Jose, CA 94325 more stuff --->
> John Smith         345 N. First Street      Oakland, CA 94356  more stuff --->
> Henry & Martha Coe 4567 Poplar Ave.         Newark, NJ 78389   more stuff--->
  
> ^                  ^                        ^
> |                  |                        |
> |                  |                        |_____  column 45
> |                  |______________________________  column 20
> |_________________________________________________  column 1
  
> I want to extract the names and addresses and output it in the following
> format:
  
> John Doe
> 1563 Meadow Lane
> San Jose, CA 94325
  
> John Smith
> 245 N. First Street
> Oakland, CA 94356
  
> Henry & Martha Coe
> 4567 Poplar Ave.
> Newark, NJ 7838
  
> Can this be done using AWK, and if so how? Or is there some other way?

Yes

{
print substr($0,1,19);
print substr($0,20,24);
print substr($0,45);
}

Provided that all of the whitespace made up of  space characters (no tabs).

-Jon

There's a time and place for spontaneity.