Hi, I would like to average the data for certain rows in a tab-delimited file, for example the file looks like this:

Name10128    1A    33.2    A    Test    0.71565    -0.011379692
Name4382    1A    34.3    A    Test    0.9043    -0.035366577
Name1635    1A    34.9    A    Test    0.836    -0.053808688
Name10267    1A    34.9    A    Test    0.04575625    0.050878715
Name10039    1A    34.9    A    Test    0.7606    -0.011123925
Name22270    1A    44.7    A    Test    0.047    0.122532651
Name22285    1A    44.7    A    Test    0    0.298871748
Name22701    1A    44.7    A    Test    0.045    0.05038769
Name10054    1A    46.4    A    Test    0    0.641618497

[download]

I want to scan down column3 and where there are identical entries, for example 34.9 and 44.7 I want to average the values in columns 6 and 7. So for the three rows that have 34.9 in column3, I would need to average the column6 values 0.836, 0.04575625 and 0.7606 and then replace those values in column6 with the average value, and do the same in column 7 for the values found there. What would be the most sensible way to proceed with this?

In reply to average a column in tab-delimited file by garyboyd

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.