change format of column

Question

I have in the input file a column with the following format

H6
H7
O4
C4
H8
H9
O5
C5
H10
H11

I want the output to have the following format

"a H6"
"a H7"
"a O4"
"a C4"
"a H8"
"a H9"
"a O5"
"a C5"
"a H10"
"a H11"

I tried so far awk '{print "a "$1""}' filein > fileout

but the output was not the desired as I got a column with missing the " ".

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– αғsнιη, Commented May 16, 2019 at 9:22

Romeo Ninov · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-16 09:01:01Z

2

You must escape the double quotes in awk. Something like will do the work

awk '{print "\"a "$1 "\" "}' filein > fileout

answered May 16, 2019 at 8:55

Romeo Ninov

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Httqm · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-16 08:55:34Z

1

And use printf instead of print in your Awk command to output into a single line.

awk '{printf "\"a "$1"\" "}' inputFile > outputFile

answered May 16, 2019 at 8:55

Httqm

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terdon · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-16 09:23:31Z

0

I would just use sed for this:

sed 's/^/"a /; s/$/"/' infile > outfile

This produces:

$ sed 's/^/"a /; s/$/"/' infile 
"a H6"
"a H7"
"a O4"
"a C4"
"a H8"
"a H9"
"a O5"
"a C5"
"a H10"
"a H11"

answered May 16, 2019 at 9:03

terdon♦

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dedowsdi · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-16 09:31:25Z

0

sed 's/.*/"a &"/' data

& is the whole matched text.

answered May 16, 2019 at 9:31

dedowsdi

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4 Answers 4