Question

I have a file with a few thousand lines of data, each line is like: a:b:c:d

So for example:

0.0:2000.00:2000.04:2000.02

I want to get all a’s in one file, b’s in second file etc. How?

Answer 1

One way. Output files will be named fileX, with X for each column number.

Assuming infile with content:

0.0:2000.00:2000.04:2001.02
0.1:2002.00:2000.05:2003.02
0.2:2003.00:2002.04:2004.02
0.3:2001.00:2000.05:2000.03
0.3:2001.00:2000.04:2001.02
0.2:2001.00:2002.04:2000.02

Execute this awk command:

awk '
    BEGIN {
        FS = ":";
    }

    {
        for ( i = 1; i <= NF; i++ ) {
            print $i > "file" i;
        }
    }
' infile

Check output files:

head file[1234]

With following result:

==> file1 <==
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.3
0.2

==> file2 <==
2000.00
2002.00
2003.00
2001.00
2001.00
2001.00

==> file3 <==
2000.04
2000.05
2002.04
2000.05
2000.04
2002.04

==> file4 <==
2001.02
2003.02
2004.02
2000.03
2001.02
2000.02