Re: Put ID at beginning of data lines

Thank you.  Your output looks good, but I am not sure my sed can take the -n option, and am not at all sure why this crashed.  
$ cat testx.txt|sed  -ne '/^"/h;/^[^"]/{G;s/\([0-9,]\+\)\n\(.*\)/\2,\1/p}' 
sed: -e expression #1, char 47: Unknown option
to 's'
$ 
 
When I transfer to a sed script, it complains about this line having an unknown option, I think it is the + that  is not recognized:

 s/\([0123456789,]\+\)\n\(.*\)/\2,\1/p 

I had to expand the numbers as my sed does not expand 0-9.

Next step?  What can take the place of that plus sign?

I also am not sure my sed will treat \n properly, but have not gotten that far yet.

eliana

> I tried this:
> $ sed -ne '/^"/h;/^[^"]/{G;s/\([0-9,]\+\)\n\(.*\)/\2,\1/p}'
> data.1
> and got this:
> "1","V3","Johnny
> Jamison",144058604,149864828
> "1","V3","Johnny
> Jamison",104132262,115218852
> "1","V3","Johnny
> Jamison",40739561,80546082
> "2","V2","Janet Anne
> Doe",145956371,150258170
> "2","V2","Janet Anne
> Doe",125505743,131005138
> "2","V2","Janet Anne
> Doe",53487753,77418759
> "2","V2","Janet Anne
> Doe",32142804,34367848
> "3","V2","William
> Jones",121742874,124782881
> "3","V2","William
> Jones",89861384,107281037
> explained:
> sed -ne '
> /^"/h;
> # if the line starts with
> quotes (the id string) hold that line
> /^[^"]/{
> # this block is for lines
> that don't start with quotes (our
> data lines) G;
> # first get
> that part that was held and
> concatenate it with the current line
> s/\([0-9,]\+\)\n\(.*\)/\2,\1/p
> # put the stuff that is data in
> the end of the line and leave the
> rest in the beggining, and also
> remove the newline so it all stays in
> one line }'
> # end of block
> 2012/5/14 Eliana
> <[email protected]> 
> > 
> > 
> > I never quite got a good handle on
> > the use of hold space, so I need
> > help with taking a file which has
> > identifying information for a
> > person on one line, followed by
> > data points on lines starting with
> > a blank space for each data point.
> > There could be anywhere from 1 to
> > dozens of data lines per individual
> > in the file.
> > 
> > I am running GNU sed version 3.02
> > on Linux.
> > 
> > Here is a sample input file:
> > "1","V3","Johnny Jamison"
> > 144058604,149864828
> > 104132262,115218852
> > 40739561,80546082
> > "2","V2","Janet Anne Doe"
> > 145956371,150258170
> > 125505743,131005138
> > 53487753,77418759
> > 32142804,34367848
> > 
> > "3","V2","William Jones"
> > 121742874,124782881
> > 89861384,107281037
> > 
> > 
> > ...The output I would like to generate
> > from the above input data would
> > look like the following:
> > 
> > "1","V3","Johnny
> > Jamison",144058604,149864828
> > "1","V3","Johnny
> > Jamison",104132262,115218852
> > "1","V3","Johnny
> > Jamison",40739561,80546082
> > "2","V2","Janet Anne
> > Doe",145956371,150258170
> > "2","V2","Janet Anne
> > Doe",125505743,131005138
> > "2","V2","Janet Anne
> > Doe",53487753,77418759
> > "2","V2","Janet Anne
> > Doe",32142804,34367848
> > "3","V2","William
> > Jones",121742874,124782881
> > "3","V2","William
> > Jones",89861384,107281037
> >