Aligns lines based on input character (for use with vim)

align

#!/bin/sh
# align: align a series of lines based on a character (default '=')
#        Lines with no occurrences are passed through
#        Lines with multiple occurrences are aligned at first
#        occurrence
CHAR='='

# argument processing
while getopts "c:" arg; do
  case $arg in
    c) CHAR=`printf '%c' $OPTARG` ;;
    *) echo "unrecognized argument: " $arg 1>&2; exit 1 ;;
  esac
done

# stdin processing
awk -v sym=$CHAR '
BEGIN { i = 1; k = 0 }
{
  split($0,parts,sym)
  if (2 <= length(parts)) {
    sub(/[ ]*$/, "", parts[1])
    sub(/^[ ]*/, "", parts[2])
    for (j=3; j <= length(parts); j++) {
      parts[2] = parts[2] parts[j]
    }
    voor[i]=parts[1]
    acht[i]=parts[2]
    if (length(voor[i]) > k) {
      k=length(voor[i])
    }
  } else {
    voor[i]=$0
  }
  i=i+1
}
END {
  for (j=1;j<=i;j++) {
    if (j in acht) {
      printf "%-" k "s " sym " %s\n", voor[j], acht[j]
    } else {
      print voor[j]
    }
  }
}
'