Write to multiple files in awk via another file...

[bondtrails]

Hey everyone,
newbie #1 still learning awk. I need some help: I have a file, each record contains data and a filename. I want my awk program to append each record to a file whose file name is on that records. For example, if file FILE_A.txt contains:
filename_1.txt data data data
filename_1.txt more data more data
filename_2.txt new data new data
filename_9.txt some other new data

then I want my awk program to write the data to the appropriate file.

Can some good soul help out a newbie??

thanks!!

--Bondster!

 

[CaKiwi]

This will print everything including the filename to the file

{print >> $1}

This will print just the data following the filename to the file, but will compress multiple consecutive spaces into 1 space

{fn = $1;$1="";print >> fn}

This will print just the data following the filename with spacing preserved.

{fn=$1;sub(/^ *[^ ]* */,""print >> fn}

If you are creating a lot of files, you may need to put a

;close(fn)

after the print


CaKiwi

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand" - Linus Van Pelt

 

[bondtrails]

CaKiwi,
{print >>$1) works fine, it writes to the appropriate file, but it also prints to STDOUT (screen). How can I suppress screen printout?

Thanks!

--Bondster!!

 

[CaKiwi]

It shouldn't write to stdout. What else do you have in your script?

CaKiwi

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand" - Linus Van Pelt

 

[bondtrails]

Hi CaKiwi,
here's my program. Don't know why it prints to STDOUT

awk -f Program.awk dataFile.txt

# ========= program1.awk ==========
outfile = substr($0,9,18)
gsub(/ /,"",outfile)
{print >>outfile ; close(outfile)}

The only way to not get printout on my screen is to redirect STNDOUT to > /dev/null

--Bondster!

 

[CaKiwi]

You need braces around the whole program

# ========= program1.awk ==========
{
outfile = substr($0,9,18)
gsub(/ /,"",outfile)
print >>outfile
close(outfile)
}

It is printing to stdout because substr or gsub is returning true which triggers the default action to print to stdout.


CaKiwi

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand" - Linus Van Pelt

 

[bondtrails]

ahh!! CaKiwi, you are a ray of light!!

--Bondster!!

 

[sachrash]

This is great!! Thanks so much CaKiwi!!