Awk: extract different columns from many different files

Question

File Example

I have a 3-10 amount of files with:

 - different number of columns
 - same number of rows
 - inconsistent spacing (sometimes o         


        

Answer 1

The combination of cut and paste should work:

$ cat f1
foo
bar
baz
$ cat f2
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
$ cat f3
a b c d
e f g h
i j k l
$ paste -d' ' <(cut -f1 f1) <(cut -d' ' -f2 f2) <(cut -d' ' -f3 f3)
foo 2 c
bar 5 g
baz 8 k

Edit: This works with tabs, too:

$ cat f4
a       b       c       d
e       f       g       h
i       j       k       l
$ paste -d' ' <(cut -f1 f1) <(cut -d' ' -f2 f2) <(cut -f3 f4)   
foo 2 c
bar 5 g
baz 8 k