Aligning the third word with 20 spaces from the beginning of the second word

Question

We have the following file:

cat info.txt

linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Speed: 1000Mb/s

linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Duplex: Full
linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Duplex: Full
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Duplex: Full
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Duplex: Full

linux04.sys98.com net3f2    Link detected: no
linux04.sys98.com net3f3    Link detected: no

linux04.sys98.com net3f2    Speed: Unknown!
linux04.sys98.com net3f3    Speed: Unknown!

linux04.sys98.com net3f2    Duplex: Unknown! (255)
linux04.sys98.com net3f3    Duplex: Unknown! (255)

linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Link detected: yes
linux03.sys98.com net16777728       Link detected: yes
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Link detected: yes
linux01.sys98.com net3f0    Link detected: yes

We want to align the third word with 20 spaces from the beginning of the second word as the following expected results:

linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Speed: 1000Mb/s
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Speed: 1000Mb/s

linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Duplex: Full
linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Duplex: Full
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Duplex: Full
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Duplex: Full

linux04.sys98.com net3f2               Link detected: no
linux04.sys98.com net3f3               Link detected: no

linux04.sys98.com net3f2               Speed: Unknown!
linux04.sys98.com net3f3               Speed: Unknown!

linux04.sys98.com net3f2               Duplex: Unknown! (255)
linux04.sys98.com net3f3               Duplex: Unknown! (255)

linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Link detected: yes
linux03.sys98.com net16777728          Link detected: yes
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Link detected: yes
linux01.sys98.com net3f0               Link detected: yes

How to perform that with printf or any other solution?

Are the two columns in the original file tab-delimited? – Kusalananda May 07 '18 at 14:22 — Kusalananda, May 07 '18 at 14:22

Stéphane Chazelas · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-07T14:39:41.020

2

With perl:

perl -ne 'printf "%s %-20s %s\n", /(\S+\s+)(\S+)\s*(.*)/' your-file

Or to avoid touching lines that don't match that pattern:

perl -pe '$_ = sprintf "%s %-20s %s\n", $1, $2, $3
            if /(\S+\s+)(\S+)\s*(.*)/' your-file

edited May 07 '18 at 14:39

answered May 07 '18 at 14:30

Stéphane Chazelas

544,893

was about to post a similar solution: perl -pe 's/(\H+\h+\H+)\h+/sprintf "%-39s", $1/e' .. only difference being mine would leave empty lines as is.. – Sundeep May 07 '18 at 14:32
another question please what in case we need to print dot "." between the second word to the third word then can you give example for that ? – jango May 07 '18 at 14:37
@jango, you can just add the . in the printf format (%s %-20s . %s). – Stéphane Chazelas May 07 '18 at 14:38
1

@Sundeep, good point about lines that don't match the pattern. See edit. – Stéphane Chazelas May 07 '18 at 14:39

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 07 '18 at 14:41

2

With sed, you would add lots of spaces after the second field and then remove everything after the 20th char:

sed -E 's/([^ ]* ){2}/&                   /;s/( .{20}) */\1/'

answered May 07 '18 at 14:41

Philippos

13,453

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 07 '18 at 15:06

0

With bash, you would write

while read a b rest; do
    printf "%s %-20s %s\n" "$a" "$b" "$rest"
done < info.txt

answered May 07 '18 at 15:06

glenn jackman

85,964

Aligning the third word with 20 spaces from the beginning of the second word

3 Answers3