Manipulating Last Line In Input File

[mhodges88]

I am new to AWK and I have what seems to be an easy task, but am having trouble manipulating the last line in the file. I figured out how to print the last line of the file to a new file by END{print > filename} because it stores that last line in a buffer, but let's say I want to print everything in the file to another file, with the exception of that final line to a different file, but I don't have a pattern to search for as this line is always going to be variable. Is there a simple way to do this? Thanks.

Mark

 

[PHV]

Something like this ?
awk '
NR>1{print a > "/path/to/file1"}
{a=$0}
END{print a > "/path/to/file2"}
' /path/to/inputfile

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

 

[mhodges88]

Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. That omits the first record from being printed to file1, but I need the last record to be omitted.

Mark

 

[PHV]

I'm atonished as I've tested the script before posting, and one more time now.
Can you please post the EXACT sequence you use ?

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

 

[mhodges88]

Sorry PH...it was late last night and I should've gone into more detail on what I was trying to accomplish! I really appreciate you helping me out. Here's my scenario:

I will have 1 input file that will have a variable number of records....more than likely thousands of records daily...FS=\n...I need to redirect all records in the input file (except the very last record) into one file, and the very last line into another. I figured out how to get the last line into a seperate file, but I'm having trouble getting everything but the last line into the first file. Since the very last line of the file will be variable, I have no pattern to match on. Or another way I could get around this would be to delete the last line of the input file and use that as my first file...but I can't delete it in the main program because I need to redirect it in the END statement. By the way, I'm on windows. If I was on Unix this would be really easy. Thanks.

Mark

 

[PHV]

And what is the problem with my awk script ?

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

 

[mhodges88]

Hey PH...you are correct...that does work...I had to change the brackets around a bit to get it to work in my awk script like this: However, it's putting a blank line at the top of filename1. That sounds easy to correct...thank you so much for your tip. I knew there had to be a way to do that.

{
{NR > 1} print a > "filename1"
{a=$0}
}

END{print a > "filename2"}

Mark

 

[PHV]

This is ABSOLUTELY not the same script as mine, I'm sorry.
If you awk version accept something like -f scriptname.awk as arguments, then create an awk script with this lines:
NR > 1 { print a > "filename1" }
{ a = $0 }
END { print a > "filename2" }

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

 

[mhodges88]

That works great PH....I think I had an extra bracket somewhere that was giving me all kinds of parse errors when I tried it the first time....I really appreciate it. How long have you been programming with AWK?

Mark