using awk to create a LaTex table from my data in a text file

Question

So I have used awk a few times to add or remove text from each line of a text file. What I would like to learn how to do now is to add some characters to each line in multiple places.

What this is for is for my data tables in latex. For example I might have a file that looks something like this:

mass merror velocity verror
1.0 0.1 2.0 0.2
1.5 0.2 1.0 0.2
2.0 0.3 0.5 0.1

now to display this as a table in latex, I need to add "&" between the columns. I want it to be 2 columns with a +/- symbol separating the error values. It also needs to be in math mode in each value. If you don't know latex don't worry. The output code I want is just this:

\(mass \pm \merror\) & \(velocity \pm verror\) \\
\(1.0 \pm 0.1\) & \(2.0 \pm 0.2\) \\
\(1.5 \pm 0.2\) & \(1.0 \pm 0.2\) \\
\(2.0 \pm 0.3\) & \(0.5 \pm 0.1\) \\

So I want it to add "(" before the first and third column of my data "\pm" before the second column and fourth column of my data, and ")" at the end of the second and fourth column. I already know how to add the \ at the end.

Answer 1

awk '{print "\\("$1" \\pm "$2"\\) & \\("$3" \\pm "$4"\\) \\\\"}'

Answer 2

The awk way you got in the comments should be perfect. Here's how to do the same thing in Perl:

perl -lane 'print "\\($F[0] \\pm \\$F[1]) & \\(\\$F[2] \\pm \\$F[3]) \\\\"' file 

Answer 3

#!/bin/bash
read -r -d '' content <<EOF
mass merror velocity verror
1.0 0.1 2.0 0.2
1.5 0.2 1.0 0.2
2.0 0.3 0.5 0.1
EOF

awk -v out='\\(%s \\pm \\%s\\) & \\(%s \\pm %s\\) \\\\\n' \
    '{printf out, $1, $2, $3, $4}' <<<"$content"

output:

\(mass \pm \merror\) & \(velocity \pm verror\) \\
\(1.0 \pm \0.1\) & \(2.0 \pm 0.2\) \\
\(1.5 \pm \0.2\) & \(1.0 \pm 0.2\) \\
\(2.0 \pm \0.3\) & \(0.5 \pm 0.1\) \\

Answers provided are good as is, but I personally find a printf sollution to be easier to deal with.