How to replace str1 with str2 in the nth field

[KathyJones]

Hi,
I have a text file like

ID name abc member? score present?
10034 abc yes 876 yes
10035 xyz yes 373 No
10036 mno 372 yes

How can I replace the "yes"s under the abc member field to "abc"? Should I use awk and sed together?? If so how??
Please help.

K.

 

[flogrr]

Hi Kathy,

Given your example this should do it:

awk '/^[0-9]+/ {

if($3 ~ /yes/) $3 = "abc"

}' infile > outfile

This limits the action to only lines that begin with one or more numbers and tests field 3 for a match on "yes". If so, it replaces "yes" with "abc".

Hope this helps,
Jesse

flogrr