Put all N lines of input in a new column
3 answers
replace 5 with the following script with your number.
seq 20|xargs -n5| awk '{for (i=1;i<=NF;i++) a[i,NR]=$i; }END{
for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) {for(j=1;j<=NR;j++)printf a[i,j]" "; print "" }}'
output:
1 6 11 16
2 7 12 17
3 8 13 18
4 9 14 19
5 10 15 20
note seq 20
above is only for generating a sequence of numbers for testing. You don't need this in your real job.
EDIT
as sudo_O pointed out, I add a pure awk solution:
awk -vn=5 '{a[NR]=$0}END{ x=1; while (x<=n){ for(i=x;i<=length(a);i+=n) printf a[i]" "; print ""; x++; } }' file
Test
kent$ seq 20| awk -vn=5 '{a[NR]=$0}END{ x=1; while (x<=n){ for(i=x;i<=length(a);i+=n) printf a[i]" "; print ""; x++; } }'
1 6 11 16
2 7 12 17
3 8 13 18
4 9 14 19
5 10 15 20
kent$ seq 12| awk -vn=5 '{a[NR]=$0}END{ x=1; while (x<=n){ for(i=x;i<=length(a);i+=n) printf a[i]" "; print ""; x++; } }'
1 6 11
2 7 12
3 8
4 9
5 10
+4
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This is how I would do it with awk
:
awk -v n=5 '{ c++ } c>n { c=1 } { a[c] = (a[c] ? a[c] FS : "") $0 } END { for (i=1;i<=n;i++) print a[i] }'
Some simple tests:
seq 21 | awk -v n=5 '{ c++ } c>n { c=1 } { a[c] = (a[c] ? a[c] FS : "") $0 } END { for (i=1;i<=n;i++) print a[i] | "column -t" }'
Results:
1 6 11 16 21
2 7 12 17
3 8 13 18
4 9 14 19
5 10 15 20
And further:
seq 40 | awk -v n=6 '{ c++ } c>n { c=1 } { a[c] = (a[c] ? a[c] FS : "") $0 } END { for (i=1;i<=n;i++) print a[i] | "column -t" }'
Results:
1 7 13 19 25 31 37
2 8 14 20 26 32 38
3 9 15 21 27 33 39
4 10 16 22 28 34 40
5 11 17 23 29 35
6 12 18 24 30 36
+2
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