Removing Quote From Field For Filename Using AWK - awk

Question

I've been playing around with this for an hour trying to work out how to embed the removal of quotes from a specific field using AWK.
Basically, the file encapsulates text in quotes, but I want to use the second field to name the file and split them based on the first field.
ID,Name,Value1,Value2,Value3
1,"AAA","DEF",1,2
1,"AAA","GGG",7,9
2,"BBB","DEF",1,2
2,"BBB","DEF",9,0
3,"CCC","AAA",1,1
What I want to get out are three files, all with the header row named:
AAA [1].csv
BBB [2].csv
CCC [3].csv
I have got it all working, except for the fact that I can't for the life of me work out how to remove the quotes around the filename!!
So, this command does everything (except the file is named with quotes around $2, but I need to do some kind of transformation on $2 before it goes into evname. In the actual file, I want to keep the encapsulating quotes.
awk -F, 'NR==1{h=$0;next}!($1 in files){evname=$2" ["$1"].csv";files[$1]=1;print h>evname}{print > evname}' DataExtract.csv
I've tried to push a gsub into this, but I'm struggling to work out exactly how this should look.
This is I think as close as I have got, but it is just calling everything "2" for $2, I'm not sure if this means I need to do an escape of $2 somehow in the gsub, but trying that doesn't seem to be working, so I'm at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong.
awk -F, 'NR==1{h=$0;next}!($1 in files){evname=gsub(""\","", $2)" - Event ID ["$1"].csv";files[$1]=1;print h>evname}{print > evname}' DataExtract.csv
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!!
Gannon

Answer 1

If I understand what you are attempting correctly, then
awk -F, 'NR==1{h=$0;next}!($1 in files){gsub(/"/, "", $2); evname=$2" ["$1"].csv";files[$1]=1;print h>evname}{print > evname}' DataExtract.csv
should work. That is
NR == 1 {
h = $0;
next
}
!($1 in files) {
stub = $2 # <-- this is the new bit: make a working copy
# of $2 (so that $2 is unchanged and the line
# is not rebuilt with changes for printing),
gsub(/"/, "", stub) # remove the quotes from it, and
evname = stub " [" $1 "].csv" # use it to assemble the filename.
files[$1] = 1;
print h > evname
}
{
print > evname
}
You can, of course, use
evname = stub " - Event ID [" $1 "].csv"
or any other format after the substitution (this one seems to be what you tried to get in your second code snippet).
The gsub function returns the number of substitutions made, not the result of the substitutions; that is why evname=gsub(""\","", $2)" - Event ID ["$1"].csv" does not work.

Answer 2

Things are always clearer with a little white space:
awk -F, '
NR==1 { hdr=$0; next }
!seen[$1]++ {
evname = $2
gsub(/"/,"",evname)
outfile = evname " [" $1 "].csv"
print hdr > outfile
}
{ print > outfile }
' DataExtract.csv
Aside: It's pretty unusual for someone to WANT to create files with spaces in their names given the complexity that introduces in any later scripts you write to process them. You sure you want to do that?
P.S. here's the gawk version as suggested by #JID below
awk -F, '
NR==1 { hdr=$0; next }
!seen[$1]++ {
outfile = gensub(/"/,"","g",$2) " [" $1 "].csv"
print hdr > outfile
}
{ print > outfile }
' DataExtract.csv

Answer 3

Apply the gsub before you make the assignment:
awk -F, 'NR==1{h=$0;next}
!($1 in files){
gsub("\"","",$2); # Add this line
evname=$2" ["$1"].csv";files[$1]=1;print...