Question

Given a file with data like this (ie stores.dat file)

id               storeNo     type
2ttfgdhdfgh      1gfdkl-28   kgdl
9dhfdhfdfh       2t-33gdm    dgjkfndkgf

Desired output:

id               |storeNo     |type
2ttfgdhdfgh      |1gfdkl-28   |kgdl
9dhfdhfdfh       |2t-33gdm    |dgjkfndkgf

Would like to add a “|” delimiter between each of these 3 cut ranges:

cut -c1-18,19-30,31-40 stores.dat

What is the syntax to insert a delimiter between each cut?

BONUS pts (if you can provide the option to trim the values like so):

id|storeNo|type
2ttfgdhdfgh|1gfdkl-28|kgdl
9dhfdhfdfh|2t-33gdm|dgjkfndkgf\

UPDATE (thanks to Mat’s answer) I ended up with success on this solution – (it is a bit messy but SunOS with my bash version doesn’t seem to support more elegant arithmetic)

#!/bin/bash
unpack=""
filename="$1"
while [ $# -gt 0 ] ; do
    arg="$1"
    if [ "$arg" != "$filename" ]
    then
        firstcharpos=`echo $arg | awk -F"-" '{print $1}'`
        secondcharpos=`echo $arg | awk -F"-" '{print $2}'`
        compute=`(expr $firstcharpos - $secondcharpos)`
        compute=`(expr $compute \* -1 + 1)`
        unpack=$unpack"A"$compute
    fi
    shift
done
perl -ne 'print join("|",unpack("'$unpack'", $_)), "\n";' $filename 

Usage: sh test.sh input_file 1-17 18-29 30-39

Answer 1

If you’re not afraid of using perl, here’s a one-liner:

$ perl -ne 'print join("|",unpack("A17A12A10", $_)), "\n";' input 

The unpack call will extract one 17 char string, then a 12 char one, then a 10 char one from the input line, and return them in an array (stripping spaces). join adds the |s.

If you want the input columns to be in x-y format, without writing a “real” script, you could hack it like this (but it’s ugly):

#!/bin/bash
unpack=""

while [ $# -gt 1 ] ; do
    arg=$(($1))
    shift
    unpack=$unpack"A"$((-1*$arg+1))
done

perl -ne 'print join("|",unpack("'$unpack'", $_)), "\n";' $1 

Usage: t.sh 1-17 18-29 30-39 input_file.