Adding an Index field to a text file

[btinder]

Hi there,

I have kludged together a KSH script to add an "index" field to a file, but it's extremely slow, because I'm reading each line of the file into a variable, then adding the index variable then the rest of the line.

This is how I did it:
while read buffer
do
index=`expr $index + 1`
echo "$index $buffer" >> NEWFILE
done < inputfile.txt

Is there a better way to do this? Thanks much!

 

[PHV]

Something like this ?
awk '{printf "%d %s\n",NR,$0}' inputfile.txt >NEWFILE

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[btinder]

That will work.

The "index" field has to be 6 bytes, i.e. 000001

How do you format the NR variable in Awk?

 

[PHV]

Try this:
awk '{printf "%06d %s\n",NR,$0}' inputfile.txt >NEWFILE

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[btinder]

Got it.

%06d will do it.

 

[btinder]

Thanks PH.