Is it possible to print the awk output in the same line

Question

The awk output looks like:

awk '{print $2}'
toto
titi
tata

I want to dispay the output of awk in the same line with space as separator instead of new line

awk [option] '{print $2}'
toto titi tata

Is it possible to do that?

score 58 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '14 at 16:25

58

From the manpage:

ORS         The output record separator, by default a newline.

Therefore,

awk 'BEGIN { ORS=" " }; { print $2 }' file

answered Jun 20 '14 at 16:25

Manny D

14

I would have written it like this `awk '{print $2}' ORS=" " file`, but this is more of choice of what you like. – Jotne Jun 20 '14 at 17:27

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 20 '14 at 17:25

32

You can always use printf to control the output of awk

awk '{printf "%s ",$2}' file
toto titi tata

answered Jun 20 '14 at 17:25

Jotne

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 20 '14 at 16:35

5

OR you can use paste

awk '{print $2}' FILE |paste -sd " "

answered Jun 20 '14 at 16:35

Baba

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 15 '22 at 21:58

3

My option is the same as accepted answer but I believe my command is a bit easy to remember.

awk '{print $2 }' ORS=' '

answered Jul 15 '22 at 21:58

Dr. Mian

4 Answers4