use awk to do horizontal sort

[grazinggoat]

Hello

I'm attempting to do a horizontal sort of /etc/group file to remove duplicate ids on same line

example:

billing::22:davew,billm,carolb,annas,davew,jackt

How can I sort uniq this with awk?
I looked at sort, uniq, cut, and tr commands but couldn't get the uid fields sorted unique.

Thanks for any insight here

 

[PHV]

Something like this ?

awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}{split($4,a,",");for(i in a)u[a[i]];for(i in u)x=x","i;print $1,$2,$3,substr(x,2)}' /etc/group

Hope This Helps, PH.
FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[PHV]

OOps, need some cleaning ...

awk '
BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}
{split($4,a,",")
 for(i in a)u[a[i]]
 for(i in u){x=x","i;delete u[i]}
 print $1,$2,$3,substr(x,2);x=""
}' /etc/group

Hope This Helps, PH.
FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[LKBrwnDBA]

Other alternative:

echo "billing::22:davew,billm,carolb,annas,davew,jackt"|\
awk -F':' '{split($4,a,","); asort(a);
printf "%s",$1":"$2":"$3;y=":";
for (i in a) {if(a[i]!=x)printf"%s",y a[i];x=a[i];y=","}
print ""}'

$ ./t1
billing::22:davew,jackt,annas,billm,carolb

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

 

[PHV]

FYI, asort() is a GNU extension.