splitting a file with lines separated by tabs into two files

Question

How could I use something like sed to split a file into two so the file containing

eric    shwartz
david    snyder

where the 4 spaces between entries are actually tabs into two files such as:

file1:

eric
david

file2:

shwartz
snyder

So it puts everything after the tab on each line into another file.

Answer 1

A solution could be:

awk '{ print $1 > "file1"; print $2 > "file2"}' file 

Answer 2

Does it have to be one script? If not, you could do this:

cut -f 1 file > file1
cut -f 2 file > file2

cut selects a column(by default separated by tab). -f is a flag which takes a number as an argument, and this number is a number of column.

Answer 3

I don't think it can get any simpler than the awk approach, so here's a Perl solution that works for any number of columns, saving each in its own file:

perl -ane 'unless($handles[0]){
            for(1..$#F+1){
                open(my $fh, ">","file$_"); 
                $handles[$_-1] = $fh
            }
           } 
           for my $i (0..$#F){
                print { $handles[$i] } "$F[$i]\n"
           }' file 

Given an input file like this:

$ cat file
foo bar baz bad
foo bar baz bad
foo bar baz bad
foo bar baz bad
foo bar baz bad
foo bar baz bad

The script above will create files file1 through file4 each of which containing the relevant column.

---

Of course, you can do exactly the same thing in awk, much more simply and elegantly, but where's the fun in that?

awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){print $i > "file"i}}' file 

Answer 4

Although slightly longer and more complicated here is is a solution using sed. (There is may be a better way but this is how I know to do it.)

sed -e 'h;s/\([^ ]\)\ .*/\1/;w file1' -e 'x;s/.*\ \([^ ]\)/\1/;w file2' file.txt

Explanation

h Save the line in the hold buffer

s/\([^ ]\)\ .*/\1/ Erase everything after the blank space.

w out1 write buffer out to file named file1

I had to start a new expression because the w command would take EVERYTHING after it as the filename to write, lucky for me the hold buffer is still intact between expressions.

x Swap the hold buffer into our working buffer

s/.*\ \(.*\)/\1/Get everything after the first blank space

w out2 write buffer out to a file named file2

Answer 5

moreutils (available in many distro repos, or http://joeyh.name/code/moreutils/ ) has a few handy utilities, one of which helps here:

pee 'cut -f1 >file1' 'cut -f2 >file2' < file