Problems using awk to make many transformations in a text file

[Geomatica]

Hi, I'm new with awk and have some trouble with it. I have a file with geographic coordinates like this:

49.397506N,123.505509W,-2.63
49.397509N,123.505495W,-2.58
49.397503N,123.505481W,-2.54
49.397505N,123.505468W,-2.50
49.397504N,123.505454W,-2.48
49.397502N,123.505440W,-2.44

The three columns (separated by commas) represent Y, X and Z values. I want it to be X, Y and Z, to remove the letters, and to make the X negative and the Z positive.

I run this code in cmd:

awk –F[,NW] -v OFS=, {print-$3,$1,-$5} originalfile.txt > newfile.txt

The new file is like this:

-123.506,49.397506,2.63
-123.505,49.397509,2.58
-123.505,49.397503,2.54
-123.505,49.397505,2.5
-123.505,49.397504,2.48
-123.505,49.397502,2.44

It is perfect except that it removes three digits from my X.
I tried many different codes and searched on forums, but I could not find anything to help me.

I hope you will help me! Thanks a lot!

 

[LKBrwnDBA]

Try:

awk -F[,NW] -v OFS=, '{printf "%f,%f,%3.2g\n",-$3,$1,-$5}' originalfile.txt > newfile.txt

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The person who says it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese proverb

 

[Geomatica]

Thanks a lot for replying!

I don't understand why, it gives me a syntax error for each % signs and for \ (backslash not last character on line).

 

[feherke]

Hi

Alternatively you can just use a string minus instead of the unary operator :

awk -F'[,NW]' -v OFS=, '[teal]{[/teal][COLOR=chocolate]print[/color][green][i][highlight]"[/highlight]-[highlight]"[/highlight][/i][/green][navy]$3[/navy][teal],[/teal][navy]$1[/navy][teal],-[/teal][navy]$5[/navy][teal]}[/teal]
' originalfile.txt > newfile.txt

Note that if you are on Windows then you may have to play with the escaping of the quotes.

Tested with [tt]gawk[/tt] and [tt]mawk[/tt].


Feherke.

 

[LKBrwnDBA]

Show us your code, use the "code, /code" tags in square brackets to format your code.

Also, when I copied and pasted your original command into a text file, it appeared with invalid characters (did you copy/paste from Word or Wordpad?) -- if so DON'T!




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The person who says it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese proverb

 

[Geomatica]

Thanks for your answers, but even with them I'm not able to keep all my digits in the output file.

I write my code in the command prompt (cdm) on a computer using Windows XP. My code is:

cd desktop\GnuWin32\bin
awk -F[,NW] -v OFS=, {print-$3,$1,-$5} originalfile.txt > newfile.txt

I'm sorry, I'm not that good in programming. My specialty is GIS and webmapping.

Thanks again.

 

[Annihilannic]

To save having to debug Windows weird handling of quotes, I recommend you create a separate file containing the awk code, e.g. mycode.awk:

[green]BEGIN[/green] {
    [blue]FS[/blue]=[red]"[/red][purple][,NW][/purple][red]"[/red]
    [blue]OFS[/blue]=[red]"[/red][purple],[/purple][red]"[/red]
}
{ [b]print[/b][red]"[/red][purple]-[/purple][red]"[/red][blue]$3[/blue],[blue]$1[/blue],-[blue]$5[/blue] }

And then use:

awk -f mycode.awk originalfile.txt > newfile.txt

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[Geomatica]

Thanks a lot Annihilannic!

This solve the problem!

Thanks to all for your help!

 

[feherke]

Hi

Another workaround would be to use CygWin instead of GnuWin32. There would be no quoting problems with its Bash.


Feherke.