unable to extract range of columns from file using awk

Asked Jul 14 '20 at 13:38

Active Jul 14 '20 at 13:40

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My input file has several lines which are each of length of 20.The length of the line is always fixed and I need to extract the first 5 values from each line in the input.txt file.

I have the follow code which I tried but I am not sure why the output.txt is always empty. I am taking the substring from column 1 to column 5, am I missing something is my code logic?

My input file: input.txt

0290This is the firm
12 I need to run the
02930290Time is vals

Sample output.txt:

0290T
12 I 
02930

My code as of now:

awk '{val=substr($0,1,5)} {print $val}' input.txt > output.txt

May someone help me find the code issue?

edited Jul 14 '20 at 13:40

Inian

80,270
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asked Jul 14 '20 at 13:38

Laura Smith

2

Use `{print val}`, not ``{print $val}``. Or just `awk '{print substr($0,1,5)}' input.txt > output.txt` – Wiktor Stribiżew Jul 14 '20 at 13:40
2

For this trivial case, just use `cut -c 1-5` – Inian Jul 14 '20 at 13:42
@WiktorStribiżew Thank you for solving the issue. :) The $ was the issue. – Laura Smith Jul 14 '20 at 13:44

unable to extract range of columns from file using awk

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