Getting rid of leading zeros

[chomps303]

I have a file with several fields. There is a field that has leading zeros, how can I get rid of them?

I am only showing 1 field below in sample.

Thanks in advance,

Brandt

ie:

"000000000501083"
"000000000546459"
"000000000006758"
"000000000314515"
"000000000332358"
"000000000082485"
"000000000328863"
"000000000402542"
"000000000143077"
"000000000058045"
"000000000475106"
"000000000551226"
"000000000441501"
"000000000000502"
"000000000479798"
"000000000231769"
"000000000000003"
"000000000259391

 

[PHV]

Assuming the first field as you didn't mention:
sed 's!"0*!"!' /path/to/input > output
Otherwise post more info on the input file.

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

 

[chomps303]

OK Thanks

I forgot to add that the field is NOT the first one.

It would be the 5th field

Thanks

Brandt

ie:

"P","A","","","000000000501083","0","aaaaaaa","bbbbbbbb","cccccccccc"
"P","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc","cccccccccc"
"P","A","","","000000000314515","0","ccccccc","dddddddd","eeeeeeeeee"
"P","A","","","000000000332358","0","ddddddd","eeeeeeee","ffffffffff

 

[PHV]

awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=","}{sub(/"0*/,"\"",$5);print}' /path/to/input > output

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

 

[chomps303]

Great!!

What would the syntax be for a second field say field 10?

Thanks

Brandt

 

[PHV]

Simply add another call to the sub function with the desired field number.

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

 

[chomps303]

I can't seem to get the syntax correct.

I tried

awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=","}{sub(/"0*/,"\"",$5);sub(/"0*/,"\"",$16);print}' foo > foo.
out

field 5 works fine fild 16 does not.

Thanks

Brandt

 

[PHV]

Can you please post some input sample and given result ?

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

 

[chomps303]

OK

field 5 & 13 take leading 0's out

thanks

"P","A","","","000000000501083","0","aaaaaaa","bbbbbbbb","cccccccccc","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc"
"P","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc","cccccccccc","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc"
"P","A","","","000000000314515","0","ccccccc","dddddddd","eeeeeeeeee"","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc"
"P","A","","","000000000332358","0","ddddddd","eeeeeeee","ffffffffff","A","","","000000000546758","0","bbbbbbb","cccccccc"

 

[futurelet]

The code should work if you change $16 to $13.

Here's a version that removes 0's from every field, leaving one if the field had nothing but 0's.

# Remove leading zeros from each field.
# Input format: "xxxx","","xxxxxx","xx"
#   Set in and out field-separators to `","'.
BEGIN { FS=OFS="\",\"" }

# Work only on lines that begin & end with quote.
/^".*"$/  \
{ # Remove the quote at the beginning & at the end
  # of the line.
  gsub( /^"|"$/, "" )
  # Examine all fields.
  for (i=1; i<=NF; i++)
    if ( length( $i ) > 1 )
    { sub( /^0+/, "", $i )
      if ( ""==$i )
        # Leave 1 zero.
        $i = "0"
    }
  # Print with restored quotes.
  print "\"" $0 "\""
  next
}
# Print non-data line.
1

If you have nawk, use it instead of awk because on some systems awk is very old and lacks many useful features. For an introduction to Awk, see faq271-5564.

Let me know whether or not this helps.