Google Answers: AWK adds extra spaces

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Q: AWK adds extra spaces ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars

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Question

Subject: AWK adds extra spaces
Category: Computers > Algorithms
Asked by: questioner1234-ga
List Price: $5.00

Posted: 29 Oct 2003 11:36 PST
Expires: 28 Nov 2003 11:36 PST
Question ID: 270836

AWK is inserting spaces in this:
Price: $",$2,$7,

So instead of "Price: $10"
it outputs "Price: $ 10"

the database is tab-delimited and doesn't appear to have extra spaces.

Here is the whole awk:
BEGIN { FS = "\t" }
{print "<html>\n<head>\n<title>",$1,"</title>\n</head>\n<body>\n",
"\<\!--webbot bot=\"Include\" U-Include=\"../top.htm\" TAG=\"BODY\"
--\>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"200\" valign=\"top\">\n",
"\<\!--webbot bot=\"Include\" U-Include=\"../left-nav.htm\"
TAG=\"BODY\" --\><p>&nbsp;</td>\n",
"<td valign=\"top\">\n<h1>",$1,"</h1>\n",
"<img src=\"",$5,"\"><br>Price: $",$2,$7,
"<a href=\"",$6,"\">Order Now</a>","\n",$6,"\n",
"</td>\n</tr>\n</table>\n</body>\n</html>\n" > $4}

Answer

Subject: Re: AWK adds extra spaces
Answered By: maniac-ga on 29 Oct 2003 17:34 PST
Rated: 5 out of 5 stars

Hello Questioner1234,

By default, the results of the print command in awk are separated by
 - output field separators (between each argument to print)
 - record field separators (between each input record processed).
The default output field separator (OFS) is a space.

Add 
  {OFS=""}
to your awk script if you want no characters between field output.

For example, I created the awk script... (a.awk)
{OFS=""}
{FS="\t"}
{print $1,$2,$3}

and the text file (a.txt)
1       a       cat
2       b       dog
3       c       horse

and processed with
  awk -f a.awk a.txt
to get
1acat
2bdog
3chorse

For more information, see the man page for awk...
  http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?awk
  http://campuscgi.princeton.edu/man?awk
or output of
  man awk
on your system.

  --Maniac

questioner1234-ga rated this answer: 5 out of 5 stars

excellent answer and explanation

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