substitutions

[Guest_imported]

Hi everyone,

I have to write a script that changes sentences like:

Grace met S. Rogers, K. Walters and P. Martin.
I know what U.F.O. means.
He finished as nr. 2.

into:

Grace met S| Rogers, K| Walters and P| Martin.
I know what U|F|O| means.
He finished as nr| 2.

I'm using the following script:

{
if($0~/S\./)
gsub(/S\./, "S|&quot
if($0~/K\./)
gsub(/K\./, "K|&quot
if($0~etc)
gsub(etc...)
print $0
}

Does anyone know how I can use regexp in this example in order to facilitate the exercise? It would be much appreciated!

Many thanks in advance!

Kim

 

[vgersh99]

A whimpy way with 2 gsubs is.......

I have to think of the better solution - I don like that one.....

BEGIN {
pat1="[.][^$]"
pat2="[|][.]"
}

{
gsub(pat1,"|&"
gsub(pat2, "|"
print;
}

END {

}

 

[vgersh99]

much easier to do in sed:

sed -e 's/[.]\([^$]\)/\|\1/g' yourFile

vlad

 

[Guest_imported]

Many thanks vgersh99! The Awk script works perfectly well! There's one problem, however, which makes it more complex. I've overlooked the possibility that two (or more) sentences can occur on the same line (sorry about that).

So:

J. Martin is his name. He's an old man. He finished as nr. 2 in his category. He knows what a U.F.O. is.

Should become:

J| Martin is his name. He's an old man. He finished as nr| 2 in his category. He knows what a U|F|O is.

So if the "stop" (".&quot is preceded by a word that has less than three letters, it becomes "|"? Still possible to solve this with gsub? Thanks for helping me with this!

Kim