dph@beta.UUCP (David P Huelsbeck) (03/22/88)
The problem I'm faced with is this: Convert possibly mixed-case strings to upper-case. (not counting case-less chars like digits) For reasons too involved to explain here I *MUST* do this is vanilla BSD4.3 awk. (A NOTE TO THE SLOW: The above is means exactly what it says. Though I haven't tried it yet myself I'm sure that "pearl" would most likely make this easier. I know it would be simple to do in GNU-E-Lisp. I know that "tr" and "dd" will do case conversion. I *CANNOT* use any of these. I *CANNOT* use the new awk. I *CANNOT* use a C program. So don't bother me or anybody else telling me I can or should. IF YOU'RE SOLUTION DOESN'T INVOLVE VANILLA BSD4.3 AWK DON'T BOTHER!) Sorry, I just know from experience that I need to make that clear. Though, I don't think it will really help I thought I'd say it anyway. It is also worth it to note that the example of my solution is overly simplified. What I have done here could have been accomplished with a internal awk pipe through tr. (i.e. print new | "tr \"[a-z]\" \"[A-Z\"") However, I need for the upper-case string to appear along with mixed-case text also generated by the same awk script. Specificly I need it to be in with some nroff stuff. (again note that I mean *nroff* not TeX!) As an example I'd like to convert something like: foo some text.... to: .ip "FOO" 10 some text .... This is the idea but it is again overly simple so I need a fairly general and powerful solution. I've tried awk pipes. The results were at best predictablely bad and at worst unpredictablely bad. After giving it some thought I came up with the following gross solution. Are there any awk hackers out there who can think of something not so gross. * David Huelsbeck * dph@lanl.gov DON'T USE "r". * {cmcl2|ihnp4}!lanl!dph IT WON'T WORK! * * Why not Comp.lang.awk ? ----my solution follows-----my solution follows-----my solution follows------- BEGIN { cap["a"] = "A"; cap["b"] = "B"; cap["c"] = "C"; cap["d"] = "D" cap["e"] = "E"; cap["f"] = "F"; cap["g"] = "G"; cap["h"] = "H" cap["i"] = "I"; cap["j"] = "J"; cap["k"] = "K"; cap["l"] = "L" cap["m"] = "M"; cap["n"] = "N"; cap["o"] = "O"; cap["p"] = "P" cap["q"] = "Q"; cap["r"] = "R"; cap["s"] = "S"; cap["t"] = "T" cap["u"] = "U"; cap["v"] = "V"; cap["w"] = "W"; cap["x"] = "X" cap["y"] = "Y"; cap["z"] = "Z" } { if ($1 ~ /[a-z]+/) { new = "" last = length($1) for (char=1; char <= last; ++char) { cur = substr($1,char,1) if (cur ~ /[a-z]/) { new = new cap[cur] } else { new = new cur } } print new } }
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (03/22/88)
> Convert possibly mixed-case strings to upper-case. > (not counting case-less chars like digits) The attached works under 4.3bsd as you required. -Barry Shein, Boston University BEGIN { upper = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"; lower = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"; } { out = ""; for(i=1;i <= length($1);i++) { if((cpos = index(lower,c = substr($1,i,1))) > 0) c = substr(upper,cpos,1); out = out c; } print out; }
morrell@hpsal2.HP.COM (Michael Morrell) (03/24/88)
This is a little less gross, I hope (and it also seems to work). BEGIN { lower="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" upper="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" } { new = "" for (i=1; i <= length; ++i) { cur = substr($0, i, 1) j = index(lower, cur) if (j != 0) new = new substr(upper, j, 1) else new = new cur } print new }
ivor@geac.UUCP (Ivor Williams) (03/24/88)
In article <20805@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: >> Convert possibly mixed-case strings to upper-case. > >The attached works under 4.3bsd as you required. > [ wonderfully economical awk script followed...] Very good: I've saved that one as an example of the sort of thing awk can do. Just one question, though: shouldn't that have been $0 rather than $1, or did I miss something in the initial question? Ivor -- Ivor Williams, Geac Computers International Inc. UUCP: {mnetor|yunexus|utgpu}!geac!ivor