changing two lines of a text file - linux

Question

I have a bash script which gets a text file as input and takes two parameters (Line N° one and line N° two), then changes both lines with each other in the text. Here is the code:
#!/bin/bash
awk -v var="$1" -v var1="$2" 'NR==var {
s=$0
for(i=var+1; i < var1 ; i++) {
getline; s1=s1?s1 "\n" $0:$0
}
getline; print; print s1 s
next
}1' Ham > newHam_changed.txt
It works fine for every two lines which are not consecutive. but for lines which follows after each other (for ex line 5 , 6) it works but creates a blank line between them. How can I fix that?

Answer 1

I think your actual script is not what you posted in the question. I think the line with all the prints contains:
print s1 "\n" s
The problem is that when the lines are consecutive, s1 will be empty (the for loop is skipped), but it will still print a newline before s, producing a blank line.
So you need to make that newline conditional.
awk -v var="4" -v var1="6" 'NR==var {
s=$0
for(i=var+1; i < var1 ; i++) {
getline; s1=s1?s1 "\n" $0:$0
}
getline; print; print (s1 ? s1 "\n" : "") s
next
}1' Ham > newHam_changed.txt

Answer 2

Using getline makes awk scripts always a bit complicated. It is better to prevent the use of getline and just make use of the awk pattern { action } syntax. This will make perfectly readable scripts. In any other language you would just do a loop and get the next line, but in awk I think it is best to make good use of this feature.
awk -v var="$1" -v var1="$2" '
NR==var {s=$0; collect=1; next;}
NR==var1 {collect=0; print; printf inbetween; print s}
collect {inbetween=inbetween""$0"\n"; next;}
1' Ham
Here I capture the first line in s when I found it and set the collect flag. This will trigger the collect block on the next iteration which collects all lines in between. Whenever the second line is found it sets the collect back to zero and prints first the current line, than the inbetween lines and then s. If the lines are consecutive inbetween is empty and printf will than do nothing.

Answer 3

Too complex for my taste, here is something quite simple that achieves the same task:
#!/bin/bash
ORIGFILE='original.txt' # original text file
PROCFILE='processed.txt' # copy of the original file to be proccesed
CHGL1=`sed "$1q;d" $ORIGFILE` # get original $1 line
CHGL2=`sed "$2q;d" $ORIGFILE` # get original $2 line
`cat $ORIGFILE > $PROCFILE`
sed -i "$2s/^.*/$CHGL1/" $PROCFILE # replace
sed -i "$1s/^.*/$CHGL2/" $PROCFILE # replace
More code doesn't mean more useful, keep it simple. This code do not use for and instead goes directly to the specific lines.
EDIT:
A simple way on one line to do this task:
printf '%s\n' 14m26 26-m14- w q | ed -s file
Found in this answer.