Using awk to align columns in text file?

Question

Would awk be useful to convert \"Input\" to \"Desired output\"?

Input

testing speed of encryption
test 0 (64 bit key, 1         


        

Answer 1

Yes. Look at the syntax for awk's printf() function. Abbreviated sample code . . .

{
  printf("%s %2s ", $1, $2);
  printf("%4s %s %s ", $3, $4, $5);
  printf("%4s %s %s ", $6, $7, $8);
  printf("%7s\n", $9);
}

Output.

test  0  (64 bit key,   16 byte blocks): 2250265
test  1 (128 bit key,   64 byte blocks):  879149
test  2 (128 bit key,  256 byte blocks):  258978
test  3 (128 bit key, 1024 byte blocks):   68218
test  4 (128 bit key, 8192 byte blocks):    8614
test 10 (256 bit key,   16 byte blocks): 1790881

Docs for GNU awk's printf().

There are several ways to pass the "heading" through unmodified. This way assumes it's always on the first line of the file.

NR==1 { print $0}
NR>1 {
  printf("%s %2s ", $1, $2);
  printf("%4s %s %s ", $3, $4, $5);
  printf("%4s %s %s ", $6, $7, $8);
  printf("%7s\n", $9);
}