Question

I have data that looks like this:

    0 1 0 0
    0 0 0 1
    0 0 0 1
    0 1 0 0

I want to print all directly subsequent rows with 1s in the same column, using awk. How would I do this?

EDIT:

Is there no way within awk to specify the previous column, something like “$1-1” (I know thats wrong btw)?

Answer 1

I assumed that there is exact one 1 per line.
Further assuming your data is in data.input.

usage:

awk -f foo.awk data.input

foo.awk:

function printBlock() {
    for(i=0; i<N; i++) {
        print BLOCK[i];
    }
}

{
    for(col=1; col<=NF; col++) {
        if($col==1) break;
    }
    if(col != last_col) {
        if(N > 1) {
            printBlock()
        }
        N = 0
    }
    BLOCK[N++] = $0;
    last_col = col;
}

END {
    if(N > 1) {
        printBlock()
    }
}