Remove Quotes from a File

This section explains how to use awk to remove all double quotes from a text file.

Interactive Command

Input file:

Output file:

Remove Quotes Command

awk '{
    gsub(/"/, "")
    print
}' yourfile.txt > yourfile_no_quotes.txt

Breakdown

1. awk '{...}' yourfile.txt:
   • This part runs the awk command on the input file, where the code inside {} is applied to each line of the file.
2. gsub(/"/, ""):
   • gsub is a function in awk that stands for "global substitution."
   • The first argument /"/ is the pattern to search for, which is a double-quote character.
   • The second argument "" is the replacement string, which in this case is empty, meaning that all double-quote characters are removed from the line.
3. print:
   • After removing all double-quote characters, awk prints the modified line.

Example

Let's see an example of how this command works:

Input content:

Input file:

Output file:

Remove Quotes Example

echo 'column1, column2
"Hello", "world"
"This is, "a test"' > example.txt && awk '{
    gsub(/"/, "")
    print
}' example.txt > example_no_quotes.txt && cat example_no_quotes.txt

This command creates an example input file, processes it to remove quotes, and then displays the contents of the output file.

Sample Output:

column1, column2
Hello, world
This is, a test

As you can see, all double quotes have been removed from the input, resulting in a clean output without any quotation marks.