[SOLVED] removing the first character in a text file using Sed

Issue

I have 100s of enormous text files in the form of

p 127210 3240293 23423234 3242323423
3242323 23423423 23423234 32423423 

which I want to turn to

127210 3240293 23423234 3242323423
3242323 23423423 23423234 32423423

I've tried using

sed '1 s/^.//' input > output 

but that gives me

 127210 3240293 23423234 3242323423
3242323 23423423 23423234 32423423

i.e. an annoying space where the p was. Can anyone help me modify the sed expression to get the output without the space?

Thanks

Solution

Following awk may help you in same.

awk '!/^[0-9]+/{$1="";$0=$0;$1=$1} 1'   Input_file

Explanation: Checking condition !/^[0-9]+/ which will check if a line doesn't start from digits then do following, then I am nullifying first field here(because you don't want p in output here), then I am re-arranging $0(current line) and re-arranging $1 too so that it could remove that initial space as per your request here.

Output will be as follows.

127210 3240293 23423234 3242323423
3242323 23423423 23423234 32423423

Answered By - RavinderSingh13

Answer Checked By - Senaida (WPSolving Volunteer)