formatting with bash and column command line

Question

I have the following file

100843      stars n30   2012-03-08  spartanico83
    stars n50   2009-11-28  babepy
    stars n05   2009-03-09  sandfox
    stars n20   2014-01-17  yeuce

My aim is to have that:

100843      stars n30   2012-03-08  spartanico83
            stars n50   2009-11-28  babepy
            stars n05   2009-03-09  sandfox
            stars n20   2014-01-17  yeuce

I have tried to use column -t as a command line but it gives me that

100843     stars n30   2012-03-08  spartanico83
stars n50  2009-11-28  babepy
stars n05  2009-03-09  sandfox
stars n20  2014-01-17  yeuce

Should I use a combination of awk and sed as well?

Thanks

No combination needed, just use awk.

Barmar
– Barmar

2014-05-27 09:44:04 +00:00
Commented May 27, 2014 at 9:44 — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented May 27, 2014 at 9:44
I'm having a look at awk.

Andy K
– Andy K

2014-05-27 09:54:39 +00:00
Commented May 27, 2014 at 9:54 — Andy K
– Andy K, Commented May 27, 2014 at 9:54

Barmar · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-27 09:48:46Z

2

This can be done just using sed:

sed -r 's/^ +/            /'

If the line begins with spaces, replace the initial spaces with 12 spaces.

answered May 27, 2014 at 9:48

Barmar

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1 Comment

Andy K Over a year ago

Indeed, Jotne. It seems the copy and paste from my file to stackoverflow dashboard changed something ... If I'm pasting the content of my file in my cygwin env, Barmar's solution is working a treat. Apologies, Barmar.

perreal · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-27 09:54:17Z

0

Put a tab with sed:

sed 's/^\([ ]*stars\)/\t\1/' input

or use sed/column for a more robust solution:

sed 's/^\([ \t]*stars\)/@\1/' input | column -t | sed 's/^@/ /'

answered May 27, 2014 at 9:54

perreal

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2 Comments

Andy K Over a year ago

However, is there nothing simplier? I'm asking because I truly thought that dealing with the options of column would be enough.

perreal Over a year ago

There might be something simpler but column seems to ignore the leading whitespace.

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