How to change the value of cell in a csv file using shell script

Question

i want to change the value of f3 cell before the echo statement in while loop

Exec &> output.csv  

file = "d:/aa.csv"  

while ifs =','  

read f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 f7 f8  

do  

echo "$f1,$f2,$f3,$f4,$f5,$f6,$f7,$f8"  

done < $file

Odd that you're asking this. Can't you put in the desired value instead of echoing f3? — devnull
– devnull, Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 19:08
Not only ifs, spaces around the assignment operator would also cause problems. — devnull
– devnull, Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 19:10

glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-09 19:27:34Z

4

If you want to change the value, then change it. Correcting errors:

while IFS=, read -r f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 f7 f8  
do  
    f3="something else"
    echo "$f1,$f2,$f3,$f4,$f5,$f6,$f7,$f8"  
done < "$file" > output.csv

or

IFS=,
while read -ra fields; do  
    fields[2]="something else"
    echo "${fields[*]}"
done < "$file" > output.csv

answered Jul 9, 2013 at 19:27

glenn jackman

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1 Comment

Abu Shoeb Over a year ago

in your original csv, each column value may be in double quotation "" format. In that case, you can update your f3 with the double quotation "" too. f3="\"something else\""

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-09 19:07:23Z

1

To change f3 to A3 in your csv use this sed command:

sed -i.bak -r 's/^(([^,]+,){2})[^,]+(.+)$/\1A3\3/' aa.csv

answered Jul 9, 2013 at 19:07

anubhava

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Comments

jaypal singh · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-09 19:08:35Z

1

With awk:

awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=","}{$3="Whatever"}1' input.csv > output.csv

answered Jul 9, 2013 at 19:08

jaypal singh

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potong · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-10 05:48:52Z

0

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed -ri 's/[^,]+/REPLACEMENT/3' file.csv

This changes the third occurence of non-commas to REPLACEMENT.

answered Jul 10, 2013 at 5:48

potong

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