Question

I have a file with the contents as such:

item1 item2 <— can be 1 or more and up to probably 10+

date1

date2

item2 item3 item4 <– 1 or more as well

date3

date4

.

.

.

And this data needs to be formatted into:

item1 date1 date2

item2 date1 date2

item2 date3 date4

item3 date3 date4

item4 date3 date4

.

.

.

I am really novice in awk so I thought I could ask in here. This is my first question in stackoverflow so please let me know what other kind of info I should provide? Thanks in advance!!!

Answer 1

Try this

   #awk -f myawk.sh temp.txt
   BEGIN { print "Start"}
   /item/ {for(i=1; i<=b; i++){ print a[i]"----"d }}
   /item/ {for(i=1; i<=NF; i++){ a[i] = $i; b=i;d=""}}
   /date/ {d = d" "$0;}
   END {for(i=1; i<=b; i++){ print a[i]"----"d } print "Process Complete"}

Output

Start
item1---- date1 date2
item2---- date1 date2
item2---- date3 date4
item3---- date3 date4
item4---- date3 date4
End