Transpose Column to Row Using Shell Script(Cygwin) 

Newsgroups:  comp.unix.shell
Date:        Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:48:17 -0500
> How can I Transpose Column to Row Using Shell Script?
>
> Original File(there's only one column)
> start
> sp.val1
> sp.val3
> sp.val4
> sp.val5
> sp.val6
> sp.val9
> end
>
> To(there's only one row)
> start sp.val1 sp.val3 sp.val4 sp.val5 sp.val6 sp.val9 end

As an alternative to the tr solution Chris posted:

{ tr '\012\015' '  ' < FILE; echo; } > newfile

there's always:

awk '$1=$1' RS= FILE > newfile

The main difference is that the awk solution will compress contiguous blank lines into a single blank character whereas the tr solution would result in multiple blank chars in the output.

Ed Morton

Transpose Column to Row Using Shell Script(Cygwin) 

> The main difference is that the awk solution will compress contiguous
> blank lines into a single blank character whereas the tr solution would
> result in multiple blank chars in the output.

I'd still use tr (as the lighter alternative):

{ tr -s '\012\015' '  ' < FILE; echo; } > newfile

Chris F.A. Johnson

documented on: 2006.01.10