[SOLVED] Extracting a cell value (constant row and column number) from multiple files and create a new file

Issue

I have 1344 ascii files with 3 columns and 68 rows of numerical values (no text/strings). They do not have any header, and the columns are space delimited. I want to extract the value at 2nd column and 7th row from each one of those files, to create one file with one column and 1344 rows.

Example file 1:
0.11 3.1450 0.03
0.12 3.1210 0.04
0.13 3.1500 0.02
0.14 3.1530 0.03
0.15 3.1720 0.02
0.16 3.1170 0.04
0.17 3.1220 0.02
...

Example file 2:
0.11 3.1150 0.03
0.12 3.1410 0.04
0.13 3.2300 0.02
0.14 3.1230 0.03
0.15 3.3720 0.02
0.16 3.1370 0.02
0.17 3.2510 0.04
...

Output file:
3.1220
3.2510
...

I tried the following code:

awk '{for (i=7) {getline}; print NR,$2}' *

It gives me an error that the term is not recognised.

Solution

Using a small set of data for demonstration purposes:

$ head f1 f2 f3
==> f1 <==
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

==> f2 <==
a b c
d e f
g h i

==> f3 <==
A B C
D E F
G H I

One awk idea to extract the 2nd column from the 2nd row in each file:

$ awk 'FNR==2 { print $2; nextfile }' f1 f2 f3
5
e
E

Where:

• FNR==2 - if this is the 2nd record of a file
• print $2 - print 2nd column
• nextfile - cease processing current file and begin processing next file

For OP's requirement we replace 2 with 7:

awk 'FNR==7 { print $2; nextfile }' *

Answered By - markp-fuso

Answer Checked By - Cary Denson (WPSolving Admin)