Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwvax!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!indri!aplcen!bink
From: bink@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Ubben Greg)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Column shifting
Summary: Use SED (as always)
Message-ID: <1287@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Date: 20 May 89 09:16:16 GMT
References: <68200001@sts>
Reply-To: bink@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Greg Ubben)
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD
Lines: 36

In article <68200001@sts> roy@sts.sts.UUCP writes:
>
> I'm wondering if there's been a program written that takes a file and
> outputs that same file except with arbitrary columns shifted over.

Sed (the stream editor) does this very nicely:

> Some examples are:
>
> input file is: 0123456789
>
> Move column 7 to column 1: 0712345689

sed "s,\(.\)\(......\)\(.\),\1\3\2,"

> Move column 7 to column 1, column 3 to column 5: 0712453689

sed "s,\(.\)\(..\)\(.\)\(..\)\(.\)\(.\),\1\6\2\4\3\5,"

> Move column 7 to column 1, column 3 to column 8: 0712456839

sed "s,\(.\)\(..\)\(.\)\(...\)\(.\)\(.\),\1\5\2\4\6\3,"

This could be done using CUT and PASTE, but it is longer, messier, and slower:
> Move column 7 to column 1, column 3 to column 5: 0712453689

tmp=/tmp/shift$$
trap "rm -f ${tmp}?; trap 0; exit" 0 1 2 15
cut -c1,8     $file >${tmp}a
cut -c2-3,5-6 $file >${tmp}b
cut -c4,7,9-  $file | paste -d\\0 ${tmp}? -

(3 more processes and 3 more files/pipes needed.)

						-- Greg Ubben
						   bink@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu