Re: [bug-gawk] FIELDWIDTHS extension request

[Ed Morton]

great, thanks!

On 5/22/2017 9:57 PM, Arnold Robbins wrote:
> Hi.
>
> OK. I've added this feature to gawk's master. It'll be in the next
> release. Andrew Schorr was helpful in shaking it out.  The doc
> on FIELDWIDTHS has also been considerably revised and there are now
> a number of additional tests.
>
> The only thing that's allowed is '*' as the last field width
> designator. None of the other flights of fancy discussed in
> the comp.lang.awk thread will be implemented.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold
>
> > Subject: Re: [bug-gawk] FIELDWIDTHS extension request
> > To: address@hidden, address@hidden
> > From: Ed Morton <address@hidden>
> > Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> > Date: Fri, 19 May 2017 07:45:00 -0500
> >
> > People are really using it this way. I personally have to do it a couple of
> > times a year with different situations (parsing log files, schedules, etc. in
> > various formats) and then there's, for example, the following questions and
> > comments from people online using or best served by the same solution:
> >
> > http://www.unix.com/unix-for-dummies-questions-and-answers/259428-find-replace-single-character-w-awk-given-conditions.html
> > https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/208888/sed-replace-at-a-specific-group-of-positions
> > https://www.cpume.com/question/tfnznotf-formatting-output-in-bash-or-awk.html
> > http://blog.bogojoker.com/tag/gawk/
> > http://bida001.com/question/119893
> > http://stackoverflow.com/q/35178883/1745001
> > http://stackoverflow.com/q/26842477/1745001
> > http://stackoverflow.com/q/43942619/1745001
> > http://stackoverflow.com/q/24909124/1745001
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.awk/uip6-Ll9Lj0/_wMoc7lEAwAJ
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >       Ed.
> >
> > On 5/19/2017 4:13 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> > > Is this request based on a theoretical discussion, or is someone
> > > actually using FIELDWIDTHS do real work?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Arnold
> > >
> > > Ed Morton <address@hidden> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Could we get an extension for FIELDWIDTHS such that a "*" (or some other
> > > > indicator) means "everything else"? It's very common to have to deal with files
> > > > like:
> > > >
> > > >        foo  bar    stuff
> > > >        bill johnny other stuff of some different length
> > > >
> > > > where it's easy to see the length of the first 2 fields but the length of the
> > > > final field can't be determined based on any sample so we end up writing code 
> > > > like:
> > > >
> > > >        FIELDWIDTHS = "5 7 9999"
> > > >
> > > > and pick some arbitrary number that we hope will be big enough to hold whatever
> > > > appears in that 3rd field. It would be clearer and more robust if we could
> > > > instead write:
> > > >
> > > >        FIELDWIDTHS = "5 7 *"
> > > >
> > > > or similar.
> > > >
> > > > We've been having a discussion about the applicability of this at
> > > > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.awk/uip6-Ll9Lj0 in case some
> > > > more background is useful.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > >        Ed.