how to print a new line in awk

Question

I am trying to print collected data from a file where each set gets a new line (\n)

Code:

awk '/mail:|fullName:|uid:/{s=s", "$0} END{print substr(s,3)}' dump2.txt

Output now:

mail: [email protected] , fullName: Bogus Bogus, uid: 666  mail: [email protected] , fullName: Bogus2 Bogus2, uid: 667

Desired output:

mail: [email protected] , fullName: Bogus Bogus, uid: 666 \n
mail: [email protected] , fullName: Bogus2 Bogus2, uid: 667 \n

Answer 1

try

 awk '/mail:|fullName:/{s=s", "$0} /uid:/ {s=s", "$0 "\n" ;} END{printf substr(s,3)}' dump2.txt

assuming no % in field

other solution

 awk '/mail:|fullName:/{s=s", "$0} /uid:/ {print substr(s,3) ", "$0 ;s=""} ' dump2.txt

assuming uid: is last.

Answer 2

you just need to add \n in desire place :

awk '/mail:|fullName:|uid:/{s=s", "$0}\n END{print substr(s,3)}' dump2.txt

Answer 3

Another technique: don't store it all up in one big string, print it out as you go along:

awk '$1=="mail:" || $1=="fullName:" {printf "%s, ", $0} $1=="uid:"' dump2.txt

Answer 4

Note: all of the below (obviously) assume that the uid: line will always be the last one of each group.  However, they all work with % characters in the data.

If you want to save up all the data and print it at the end, here’s a somewhat simple approach, using arrays:

awk 'BEGIN {count=0}
     /mail:|fullName:|uid:/ {s[count] = s[count] ", " $0} /uid:/ {count++}
     END {for (i=0; i<count; i++) print substr(s[i],3)}' dump2.txt

If you want to be able to handle the fields individually (at the end), use a two-dimensional array:

awk 'BEGIN {count=0}
     /mail:|fullName:|uid:/ {s[count][$1] = $0} /uid:/ {count++}
     END {for (i=0; i<count; i++) printf "%s, %s, %s\n",
                s[i]["mail:"], s[i]["fullName:"], s[i]["uid:"]}' dump2.txt

(Like glenn’s answer, this assumes that the mail:, fullName:, and uid: strings appear as the first field in the line.)

I don’t know what you meant when you mentioned alignment, but, from here, it’s easy to line up the fields in your output:

awk 'BEGIN {count=0}
     /mail:|fullName:|uid:/ {s[count][$1] = $0} /uid:/ {count++}
     END {for (i=0; i<count; i++) printf "%23s, %23s, %s\n",
                s[i]["mail:"], s[i]["fullName:"], s[i]["uid:"]}' dump2.txt

➘

  mail: [email protected],   fullName: Bogus Bogus, uid: 666
 mail: [email protected], fullName: Bogus2 Bogus2, uid: 667

or

awk 'BEGIN {count=0}
     /mail:|fullName:|uid:/ {s[count][$1] = $0} /uid:/ {count++}
     END {for (i=0; i<count; i++) printf "%-23s, %-23s, %s\n",
                s[i]["mail:"], s[i]["fullName:"], s[i]["uid:"]}' dump2.txt

➘

mail: [email protected]  , fullName: Bogus Bogus  , uid: 666
mail: [email protected] , fullName: Bogus2 Bogus2, uid: 667

or

awk 'BEGIN {count=0}
     /mail:|fullName:|uid:/ {s[count][$1] = $0} /uid:/ {count++}
     END {for (i=0; i<count; i++) printf "%-23s %-24s %s\n",
                                    s[i]["mail:"] ",",
                                    s[i]["fullName:"] ",",
                                    s[i]["uid:"]}' dump2.txt

➘

mail: [email protected],  fullName: Bogus Bogus,   uid: 666
mail: [email protected], fullName: Bogus2 Bogus2, uid: 667

This answer shows how you can determine the maximum data length for each field.