Question

I have 12 columns separated by a tab. How can I join them side-by-side?

[Added] You can also tell me other methods as AWK: the faster the better.

Answer 1

Since you asked specifically about awk (there are tools better suited to the job), the following is a first-cut solution:

awk '{print $1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8$9$10$11$12}' 

A more complicated and configurable solution, where you could change the number of columns used for output, would be:

awk -v lim=12 '{for(x=1;x<lim;x++){printf '%s',$x};print ''}' 

Other possibilities, if you’re not restricted to awk, are:

tr -d '\011'                     # to combine ALL columns on the line. cut --output-delimiter='' -f1-12 # more general (1-12 or 3-7 or 1-6,9). 

Based on your edit and comments, I suggest cut is the best tool for the job. Use ‘man cut‘, ‘info cut‘ or ‘cut --help‘ for more details (this depends on your platform).