Converting row-formatted data into columnar format

Question

I have a dataset as such:

Name:      Jim Bean
Vice:      Dice
ID:        AFDSDFDSFDSFASFA
LoginTime: 12343314

Name:      Bob Dylon
Vice:      Trumpets
ID:        AFD232SFDSFASFA
LoginTime: 12343314

Name:      Mary Jane
Vice:      Gambling
ID:        EWDSFDSFASFA
LoginTime: 12343314

.....

I need to arrange this into a columnar format. My first thought is to use awk. But I'm a bit stuck.

The labels will always appear in the same order, also it will always show the same number of label/value pairs in each group (headers aren't important).

My question is: How would I do this?

I've seen hints that the command rs may be able to do something like that, but it's not standard on all systems.

Answer 1

You should post desired output with your question. My guess was this:

$ awk '{ if($2) printf("%s ", $2); else print ""; }' < dataset
Jim Dice AFDSDFDSFDSFASFA 12343314 
Bob Trumpets AFD232SFDSFASFA 12343314 
Mary Gambling EWDSFDSFASFA 12343314

Note that this is an awfully stupid method, it does not validate anything at all. If your input looks any different from what you posted it will probably break.

Answer 2

You can do it like this with GNU awk, note the use of RS and FS:

<infile awk '{ print $2, $4, $6, $8 }' RS='\n\n' FS=': +|\n' OFS='\t'

If you want to keep the header:

<infile awk 'NR==1 { print $1, $3, $5, $7 } { print $2, $4, $6, $8 }' RS='\n\n' FS=': +|\n' OFS='\t'

Assuming all your records are formatted like this, you could do it like this with coreutils:

<infile grep -v '^$' | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f2- | paste - - - -

Output:

Jim Bean    Dice    AFDSDFDSFDSFASFA    12343314
Bob Dylon   Trumpets    AFD232SFDSFASFA 12343314
Mary Jane   Gambling    EWDSFDSFASFA    12343314

Output with header:

Name    Vice    ID      LoginTime
Jim Bean        Dice    AFDSDFDSFDSFASFA        12343314
Bob Dylon       Trumpets        AFD232SFDSFASFA 12343314
Mary Jane       Gambling        EWDSFDSFASFA    12343314