Split file into multiple according to variable content

Question

I want to split file according to it's content.
My dummy file looks like that:

info   info    info    cat
info   info    info    cow
info   info    info    dog
info   info    info    dinosaur 
info   info    info    bat

$4 words starts with different letters (C,D,B) - I want to split file into multiples according to the first letter of $4.
Preferable output (3 different files) looks like that:

file_c

info   info    info    cat  
info   info    info    cow

file_d

info   info    info    dog
info   info    info    dinosaur

file_b

info   info    info    bat

Hope someone can help me with this.

check another example here:theunixshell.blogspot.com/2013/01/… — Vijay
– Vijay, Commented Jan 25, 2013 at 10:31

Kent · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-25 10:16:11Z

5

this oneliner should work:

awk '{print $0 > "file_"substr($4,0,1)}' yourfile

answered Jan 25, 2013 at 10:16

Kent

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2 Comments

pogibas Over a year ago

Thanks it works! Though I had to replace substr($4,0,1) with substr($4,1,1) - don't know why.

Olivier Dulac Over a year ago

because "0" is assumed on some awk distribution, to be silently replaced by "1", but it's not the case on all awk out there.

Vijay · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-25 10:15:05Z

3

awk '{name="file_"substr($4,0,1);print >name}' your_file

tested below:

> cat temp
info   info    info    cat
info   info    info    cow
info   info    info    dog
info   info    info    dinosaur 
info   info    info    bat
> awk '{name="file_"substr($4,0,1);print >name}' temp
> cat file_b
info   info    info    bat
> cat file_c
info   info    info    cat
info   info    info    cow
> cat file_d
info   info    info    dog
info   info    info    dinosaur

answered Jan 25, 2013 at 10:15

Vijay

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1 Comment

pogibas Over a year ago

Thanks it works! Though I had to replace substr($4,0,1) with substr($4,1,1) - don't know why.

Lev Levitsky · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-25 10:03:05Z

2

$ while read a b c d; do echo $a $b $c $d >> file_${d:0:1}; done < dummy.txt

answered Jan 25, 2013 at 10:03

Lev Levitsky

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2 Comments

pogibas Over a year ago

something went wrong. There was only one file_ & it's content was "info info info bat". No file for a or d

Lev Levitsky Over a year ago

@Poe Strange, it works for me. I tried to change spaces to tabs in the input, but it's still working for me. Are you sure you're on bash? Are there backslashes in the real file?

Mirage · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-26 09:07:08Z

0

Using Python

with open("temp.txt","r") as f:
     for line in f.readlines():
        col = line.split()[3][0]
        filename = "file_"+col
        f2 = open(filename,"a")
        f2.write(line)
f2.close()

answered Jan 26, 2013 at 9:07

Mirage

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