4.14. How do I commify a string of numbers?
Use the simplest script necessary to accomplish your task. As
variations of the line increase, the sed script must become more
complex to handle additional conditions. Whole numbers are
simplest, followed by decimal formats, followed by embedded words.
Case 1: simple strings of whole numbers separated by spaces or
commas, with an optional negative sign. To convert this:
4381, -1222333, and 70000: - 44555666 1234567890 words
56890 -234567, and 89222 -999777 345888777666 chars
to this:
4,381, -1,222,333, and 70,000: - 44,555,666 1,234,567,890 words
56,890 -234,567, and 89,222 -999,777 345,888,777,666 chars
use one of these one-liners:
sed ':a;s/\B[0-9]\{3\}\>/,&/;ta' # GNU sed
sed -e :a -e 's/\(.*[0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/;ta' # other seds
Case 2: strings of numbers which may have an embedded decimal
point, separated by spaces or commas, with an optional negative
sign. To change this:
4381, -6555.1212 and 70000, 7.18281828 44906982.071902
56890 -2345.7778 and 8.0000: -49000000 -1234567.89012
to this:
4,381, -6,555.1212 and 70,000, 7.18281828 44,906,982.071902
56,890 -2,345.7778 and 8.0000: -49,000,000 -1,234,567.89012
use the following command for GNU sed:
sed ':a;s/\(^\|[^0-9.]\)\([0-9]\+\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1\2,\3/g;ta'
and for other versions of sed:
sed -f case2.sed files
# case2.sed
s/^/ /; # add space to start of line
:a
s/\( [-0-9]\{1,\}\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/g
ta
s/ //; # remove space from start of line
#---end of script---
