how to iterate though delimited values in bash

Question

BASH

input: cat test

  1 a;b;c;d
  2 a;b;c;d
  3 a;b;c;d

desired output is:

  1 a
  1 b
  1 c
  1 d
  2 a
  2 b
  2 c
          


        

Answer 1

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed -r 's/^((\s*\S+\s*)[^;]*);/\1\n\2/;P;D' file

Replace each ; by a newline followed by the key.