String manipulation **

This exercise is not specific for awk, but I keep getting questions of this kind, since it is rather common situation. Anyway, if this is what you find interesting, here are few task that will require you to read a bit on how to use the special formatting. Feel free to look in the answers and decode the code.

Let us use the following file.

strfunc.dat

Daniel    10.32
Anders    7.44
Sven      56.898
Ali      -17.2
Peter      6

Task 1

Write an awk script that aligns the data in such way.

Daniel     10.320
Anders      7.440
Sven       56.898
Ali       -17.200
Peter       6.000

Possible solution

$ awk '{printf("%-10s%7.3f\n",$1,$2) }' strfunc.dat

Task 2

There is away to align without taking into account the sign...

Daniel    10.320
Anders    7.440
Sven      56.898
Ali      -17.200
Peter     6.000

Possible solution

$ awk '{printf("%-7s  % .3f\n",$1,$2) }' strfunc.dat

Task 3

Can you modify the script so you get this form which preserves the original data and formatting, but still makes it more readable.

 Daniel  10.32
 Anders  7.44
   Sven  56.898
    Ali  -17.2
  Peter  6

Possible solution

$ awk '{printf("%7s  %-7s\n",$1,$2) }' strfunc.dat

Task 4

Can you use the data to compose strings like this?

Dan+10.320
And+7.440
Sve+56.898
Ali-17.200
Pet+6.000

Possible solution

$ awk '{printf("%.3s%+.3f\n",$1,$2) }' strfunc.dat