Print a file in multiple columns based on delimiter

Question

This seems like a simple task, but using duckduckgo I wasn\'t able to find a way to properly do what I\'m trying to.

The main question is: How do I split the output of a

Answer 1

Alright, since apprently there is no clean way to do this I came up with my own solution. It's a bit messy and requires GNU screen to be installed, but it works. Any amount of lines within or around the blocks, 50% of the screen automatically resizing and each column prints independantly from each other with a fixed amount of newlines between them. Also automatic updates every x seconds. (120 in my example)

#!/bin/bash

screen -S testscr -X layout save default
screen -S testscr -X split -v
screen -S testscr -X screen tail -f /tmp/testscr1.txt
screen -S testscr -X focus
screen -S testscr -X screen tail -f /tmp/testscr2.txt

while : ; do
    echo "" > /tmp/testscr1.txt
    echo "" > /tmp/testscr2.txt
    cfile=1 # current column
    ctype=0 # start or end of block

    while read; do
        if [[ $REPLY == "------------------------------------------------------------" ]]; then
            if [[ $ctype -eq 0 ]]; then
                ctype=1
            else
                if [[ $cfile -eq 1 ]]; then
                    echo "${REPLY}" >> /tmp/testscr1.txt
                    echo "" >> /tmp/testscr1.txt
                    echo "" >> /tmp/testscr1.txt
                    cfile=2
                else
                    echo "${REPLY}" >> /tmp/testscr2.txt
                    echo "" >> /tmp/testscr2.txt
                    echo "" >> /tmp/testscr2.txt
                    cfile=1
                fi
                ctype=0
            fi
        fi
        if [[ $ctype -eq 1 ]]; then
            if [[ $cfile -eq 1 ]]; then
                echo "${REPLY}" >> /tmp/testscr1.txt
            else
                echo "${REPLY}" >> /tmp/testscr2.txt
            fi
        fi
    done < "$1"
    sleep 120
done

First, start a screen session with screen -S testscr then, either within or outside the session, execute the script above. This will split the screen vertically using 50% per column and execute tail -f on both columns, afterwards it will go through the input file and write block by block to each tmp. file in the desired way. Since it's in an infinite while loop it's essentially automatically updating the shown output every x seconds (here 120).