Converting a list of ids to a space-separated ids

Question

I have a list of ids as follows, and I want to convert them to a space separated ids (see output below)

INPUT:-

OUTPUT:-

485238 478892 475507 467737 486413 483571 490005

possible duplicate of [sed: How can I replace a newline (\n)?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1251999/sed-how-can-i-replace-a-newline-n) — Christian Ternus, Oct 21 '13 at 01:14
@ChristianTernus - I tried sed 's#\n# #g' file but it didnt work..how can I run it on a file,lets say test.txt containing above ids — carte blanche, Oct 21 '13 at 01:17
You want to check the _answer_ to the question linked above, not the things the question asker (unsuccessfully!) tried. — Christian Ternus, Oct 21 '13 at 01:18
@ChristianTernus - even i checked that..it doesnt show how to run on a file? — carte blanche, Oct 21 '13 at 01:19

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 21 '13 at 06:56

4

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed ':a;$!N;s/\n/ /;ta' file

But really this is a job for paste:

paste -sd\  file

N.B. there is a space after the backslash and a space before the file

answered Oct 21 '13 at 06:56

potong

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 21 '13 at 05:35

2

Using awk, you can do this:

awk '{printf "%s ",$0}' file
485238 478892 475507 467737 486413 483571 490005

answered Oct 21 '13 at 05:35

Jotne

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 21 '13 at 01:25

$ more test.txt
485238
478892
475507
467737
486413
483571
490005
$ sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g' test.txt
485238 478892 475507 467737 486413 483571 490005

If you want to send this to a new file:

$ sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g' test.txt > test2.txt
$ more test2.txt 
485238 478892 475507 467737 486413 483571 490005

3 Answers3