hi,
i rustled up a small limbo program (attached) that does the trick.
hope this helps.
% cat num1.txt
one two three
four five six
seven eight nine
% ./trans num1.txt
one four seven
two five eight
three six nine
% cat num2.txt
one two three four
five six seven
eight nine
ten
eleven twelve
thirteen fourteen fifteen
sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen
% ./trans num2.txt
one five eight ten eleven thirteen sixteen
two six nine ---- twelve fourteen seventeen
three seven ---- ---- ---- fifteen eighteen
four ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- nineteen
%
thanks
dharani
>
> > Is there an easy way to transpose the text so that rows become
> > columns, and vice versa? Delimiter is space.
>
> If you know in advance the number of rows & colums, it's easy:
>
> term% cat t
> one two three four
> five six seven eight
> nine ten eleven twelve
> term% tr -s ' ' '\xA' <t | pr -t -3 -l4 | tr -s ' ' ' '
> one five nine
> two six ten
> three seven eleven
> four eight twelve
>
>