Highest Columns Number Records Issue

Question

I have a test.txt file with contents as follows:

1:2:3
123:5
34589:5:0
34567:8:7
781:9:09

Could you please help me getting the following output from that test.txt file?

345895:0
345678:7
7819:09

Explanation: below line contains the highest number column i,g. 3 and removed :

345895:0
345678:7
7819:09

do u want to print if the first column is more than 3 digits? — Siva
– Siva, Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:37
records should be 2 column always. need to replace the those having more than 2 columns . thats it — Rabindra Panigrahi
– Rabindra Panigrahi, Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:40
@RabindraPanigrahi are you looking for something like: awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"} NR>=3 { print $1,$3 }' yourfile ? — Valentin Bajrami
– Valentin Bajrami, Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:42
1:2:3 has 3 columns too, so shouldn't 12:3 appear in the output as well? — DonHolgo
– DonHolgo, Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:43
Do you need to sort numbers by the first column and print the highest three? Why is the 781:9:09 converted to 7819:09? Do you compare numbers before this concatenation or after? — deimos
– deimos, Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 12:46

alessiosavi · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-23 13:05:12Z

The solution is the following:

Assume that your file is called test.txt

cat test.txt | sort -nr | head -n 3 | sed 's/://'

Assume that the file content is the following:

1:2:3
123:5
34589:5:0
34567:8:7
781:9:09

The result will be the following:

345895:0
345678:7
781:9:09

cat test.txt -> Simply print the content of the file to the stdout
sort -nr -> Sort the data assuming that are number symbol (-n), in reverse order (-r)
head -n3 -> Filter from the result, only the first 3 lines (-n 3)
sed 's/://' -> Remove the first : occurrence

DonHolgo · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-23 14:02:39Z

0

Assuming I understood the requirements correctly, this should work:

awk 'BEGIN {FS=OFS=":"} NF > 2 {print $1$2,$3}' test.txt

This prints all lines with more than two columns, concatenating the first two into one.

answered Sep 23, 2019 at 14:02

DonHolgo

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