Print a row of 16 lines evenly side by side (column) - linux

Question

I have a file with unknown number of lines(but even number of lines). I want to print them side by side based on total number of lines in that file. For example, I have a file with 16 lines like below:
asdljsdbfajhsdbflakjsdff235
asjhbasdjbfajskdfasdbajsdx3
asjhbasdjbfajs23kdfb235ajds
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbaj456fd3v
asjhbasdjb6589fajskdfbaj235
asjhbasdjbfajs54kdfbaj2f879
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbajxdfgsdh
asjhbasdf3709ddjbfajskdfbaj
100
100
150
125
trh77rnv9vnd9dfnmdcnksosdmn
220
225
sdkjNSDfasd89asdg12asdf6asdf
So now i want to print them side by side. as they have 16 lines in total, I am trying to get the results 8:8 like below
asdljsdbfajhsdbflakjsdff235 100
asjhbasdjbfajskdfasdbajsdx3 100
asjhbasdjbfajs23kdfb235ajds 150
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbaj456fd3v 125
asjhbasdjb6589fajskdfbaj235 trh77rnv9vnd9dfnmdcnksosdmn
asjhbasdjbfajs54kdfbaj2f879 220
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbajxdfgsdh 225
asjhbasdf3709ddjbfajskdfbaj sdkjNSDfasd89asdg12asdf6asdf
paste command did not work for me exactly, (paste - - - - - - - -< file1) nor the awk command that I used awk '{printf "%s" (NR%2==0?RS:FS),$1}'
Note: The number of lines in a file dynamic. The only known thing in my scenario is, they are even number all the time.

Answer 1

If you have the memory to hash the whole file ("max" below):
$ awk '{
a[NR]=$0 # hash all the records
}
END { # after hashing
mid=int(NR/2) # compute the midpoint, int in case NR is uneven
for(i=1;i<=mid;i++) # iterate from start to midpoint
print a[i],a[mid+i] # output
}' file
If you have the memory to hash half of the file ("mid"):
$ awk '
NR==FNR { # on 1st pass hash second half of records
if(FNR>1) { # we dont need the 1st record ever
a[FNR]=$0 # hash record
if(FNR%2) # if odd record
delete a[int(FNR/2)+1] # remove one from the past
}
next
}
FNR==1 { # on the start of 2nd pass
if(NR%2==0) # if record count is uneven
exit # exit as there is always even count of them
offset=int((NR-1)/2) # compute offset to the beginning of hash
}
FNR<=offset { # only process the 1st half of records
print $0,a[offset+FNR] # output one from file, one from hash
next
}
{ # once 1st half of 2nd pass is finished
exit # just exit
}' file file # notice filename twice
And finally if you have awk compiled into a worms brain (ie. not so much memory, "min"):
$ awk '
NR==FNR { # just get the NR of 1st pass
next
}
FNR==1 {
mid=(NR-1)/2 # get the midpoint
file=FILENAME # filename for getline
while(++i<=mid && (getline line < file)>0); # jump getline to mid
}
{
if((getline line < file)>0) # getline read from mid+FNR
print $0,line # output
}' file file # notice filename twice
Standard disclaimer on getline and no real error control implemented.
Performance:
I seq 1 100000000 > file and tested how the above solutions performed. Output was > /dev/null but writing it to a file lasted around 2 s longer. max performance is so-so as the mem print was 88 % of my 16 GB so it might have swapped. Well, I killed all the browsers and shaved off 7 seconds for the real time of max.
+------------------+-----------+-----------+
| which | | |
| min | mid | max |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+
| time | | |
| real 1m7.027s | 1m30.146s | 0m48.405s |
| user 1m6.387s | 1m27.314 | 0m43.801s |
| sys 0m0.641s | 0m2.820s | 0m4.505s |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+
| mem | | |
| 3 MB | 6.8 GB | 13.5 GB |
+------------------+-----------+-----------+
Update:
I tested #DavidC.Rankin's and #EdMorton's solutions and they ran, respectively:
real 0m41.455s
user 0m39.086s
sys 0m2.369s
and
real 0m39.577s
user 0m37.037s
sys 0m2.541s
Mem print was about the same as my mid had. It pays to use the wc, it seems.

Answer 2

$ pr -2t file
asdljsdbfajhsdbflakjsdff235 100
asjhbasdjbfajskdfasdbajsdx3 100
asjhbasdjbfajs23kdfb235ajds 150
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbaj456fd3v 125
asjhbasdjb6589fajskdfbaj235 trh77rnv9vnd9dfnmdcnksosdmn
asjhbasdjbfajs54kdfbaj2f879 220
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbajxdfgsdh 225
asjhbasdf3709ddjbfajskdfbaj sdkjNSDfasd89asdg12asdf6asdf
if you want just one space between columns, change to
$ pr -2ts' ' file

Answer 3

You can also do it with awk simply by storing the first-half of the lines in an array and then concatenating the second half to the end, e.g.
awk -v nlines=$(wc -l < file) -v j=0 'FNR<=nlines/2{a[++i]=$0; next} j<i{print a[++j],$1}' file
Example Use/Output
With your data in file, then
$ awk -v nlines=$(wc -l < file) -v j=0 'FNR<=nlines/2{a[++i]=$0; next} j<i{print a[++j],$1}' file
asdljsdbfajhsdbflakjsdff235 100
asjhbasdjbfajskdfasdbajsdx3 100
asjhbasdjbfajs23kdfb235ajds 150
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbaj456fd3v 125
asjhbasdjb6589fajskdfbaj235 trh77rnv9vnd9dfnmdcnksosdmn
asjhbasdjbfajs54kdfbaj2f879 220
asjhbasdjbfajskdfbajxdfgsdh 225
asjhbasdf3709ddjbfajskdfbaj sdkjNSDfasd89asdg12asdf6asdf

Answer 4

Extract the first half of the file and the last half of the file and merge the lines:
paste <(head -n $(($(wc -l <file.txt)/2)) file.txt) <(tail -n $(($(wc -l <file.txt)/2)) file.txt)
You can use columns utility from autogen:
columns -c2 --by-columns file.txt
You can use column, but the count of columns is calculated in a strange way from the count of columns of your terminal. So assuming your lines have 28 characters, you also can:
column -c $((28*2+8)) file.txt

Answer 5

I do not want to solve this, but if I were you:
wc -l file.txt
gives number of lines
echo $(($(wc -l < file.txt)/2))
gives a half
head -n $(($(wc -l < file.txt)/2)) file.txt > first.txt
tail -n $(($(wc -l < file.txt)/2)) file.txt > last.txt
create file with first half and last half of the original file. Now you can merge those files together side by side as it was described here .

Answer 6

Here is my take on it using the bash shell wc(1) and ed(1)
#!/usr/bin/env bash
array=()
file=$1
total=$(wc -l < "$file")
half=$(( total / 2 ))
plus1=$(( half + 1 ))
for ((m=1;m<=half;m++)); do
array+=("${plus1}m$m" "${m}"'s/$/ /' "${m}"',+1j')
done
After all of that if just want to print the output to stdout. Add the line below to the script.
printf '%s\n' "${array[#]}" ,p Q | ed -s "$file"
If you want to write the changes directly to the file itself, Use this code instead below the script.
printf '%s\n' "${array[#]}" w | ed -s "$file"
Here is an example.
printf '%s\n' {1..10} > file.txt
Now running the script against that file.
./myscript file.txt
Output
1 6
2 7
3 8
4 9
5 10
Or using bash4+ feature mapfile aka readarray
Save the file in an array named array.
mapfile -t array < file.txt
Separate the files.
left=("${array[#]::((${#array[#]} / 2))}") right=("${array[#]:((${#array[#]} / 2 ))}")
loop and print side-by-side
for i in "${!left[#]}"; do
printf '%s %s\n' "${left[i]}" "${right[i]}"
done
What you said The only known thing in my scenario is, they are even number all the time. That solution should work.