How to switch columns in Linux

Question

[mm]

How to switch columns 5 and 6 in a file in Linux؟Without going the last column into the second line

I data samples as follows:

R950E03 111006 930226 910008 Resistant 1

R950E06 110917 950085 910043 Resistant 2

R950C09 110892 950085 910125 Resistant 2

R949B05 111101 870141 840409 Resistant 2

[GenoMax]

First stop for these sort of questions should be a search. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11967776/swap-two-columns-awk-sed-python-perl
http://www.theunixschool.com/2012/11/how-to-swap-2-columns-in-file-in-linux.html

Answer 1

[cschu181]

Assuming, your data are in data.txt:

awk 'BEGIN {OFS="\t";} {tmp=$5;$5=$6;$6=tmp;print $0;}' data.txt

Edit: mixed up blockquote and code Edit2: added BEGIN-block, setting OFS to tab

[Charles Plessy]

Note that in your example, if the delimiters were tabulations, they will be silently converted to spaces:

$ cat test.txt 
a   b   c
1   2   3

$ cat -A test.txt 
a^Ib^Ic$
1^I2^I3$

$ awk '{print $1, $3, $2}' test.txt  | cat -A
a c b$
1 3 2$

$ awk '{OFS="\t"}{print $1, $3, $2}' test.txt  | cat -A
a^Ic^Ib$
1^I3^I2$

[mm]

Thanks for your guidance. But the $ ,^M signs in output There! I do not want this mark The output is shown below:

R950E03 1 111006 930226 910008 1^M Resistant$

R950E06 1 110917 950085 910043 2^M Resistant$

R950C09 1 110892 950085 910125 2^M Resistant$

[michael.ante]

It's usually an CR-character. Meaning you have a file from the Windows/Dos world. Just run the dos2unix on that file to convert it.

[mm]

I convert the file. But there is still a sign!

Convert command is as follows:

dos2unix 2.txt

[michael.ante]

If it's only the '$', it's OK. This is a Unix encoding for end of line/ new line.

Charles Plessy's reply shows the typical behaviour of a unix file.

[mm]

ok

To remove the ^M What can I do?

[GenoMax]

dos2unix should have got rid of those. Since it has not

sed -e "s/\^M//g" filename > new_filename Note: You need to type ctrl+v ctrl+M to type ^M correctly.

[cschu181]

Are you currently using the | cat -A, by chance?

[cschu181]

Good point, all too easy to forget about that.

[mm]

With this command Columns shifted But last column moved to the next line

[cschu181]

awk '{tmp=$5;$5=$6;$6=tmp;print $0;}' test.txt

yields

first line: R950E03 111006 930226 910008 1 Resistant
second line: R950E06 110917 950085 910043 2 Resistant
third line: R950C09 110892 950085 910125 2 Resistant
fourth line: R949B05 111101 870141 840409 2 Resistant

for me...

[mm]

my OS is linux.........

[GenoMax]

What OS are you doing this on? macOS?

[cschu181]

In my case it works fine on both macOS and a CentOS bash shell...

[WouterDeCoster]

I've seen similar things with Windows/dos line terminators, but can't replicate that here since my home computer is Ubuntu. Maybe tomorrow.

Answer 2

[WouterDeCoster]

Try to learn yourself the magic of common linux tools, in this case cut and paste. Grep, sed and awk are also good friends.

paste <(cut -f1-4,6 yourfile.txt) <(cut -f5 yourfile.txt) > rearrangedfile.txt

[cschu181]

Solved an age-old question of mine how to "leave out a column" without awk. Of course, process substitution...

[WouterDeCoster]

I find it more intuitive than awk solutions, but whatever gets the job done...

[cschu181]

Yea, I agree, until a couple of months ago, I really hated awk-based solutions. That's why I like your's as I never thought of that way and usually reverted to a python-based solution or something like that...

[mm]

With this command. Data was repeated!!!!!!!!!!

1 R950E03 111006 930226 910008 Resistant 1

1 R950E06 110917 950085 910043 Resistant 2

1 R950C09 110892 950085 910125 Resistant 2

1 R950E03 111006 930226 910008 Resistant 1

1 R950E06 110917 950085 910043 Resistant 2

1 R950C09 110892 950085 910125 Resistant 2

[WouterDeCoster]

I noticed I made a mistake and corrected it, but that doesn't explain the duplication of those columns. Also, I will understand your sentence with fewer exclamation marks, thank you.

What is your text delimiter?

[mm]

My language is not English! And I do not understand the meaning of some sentences Please speak more clearly

[WouterDeCoster]

I didn't mean to be rude. I just wasn't aware that there are languages in which adding 10 exclamation marks was considered polite.

What is your text delimiter?

By which invisible character, such as a tab or space, are the columns in your text file separated?

[mm]

space...............