I have a file that contains a number of fields separated by tab. I am trying to print all columns except the first one but want to print them all in only one column with AWK. The format of the file is
col 1 col 2 ... col n
There are at least 2 columns in one row.
Sample
2012029754 901749095
2012028240 901744459 258789
2012024782 901735922
2012026032 901738573 257784
2012027260 901742004
2003062290 901738925 257813 257822
2012026806 901741040
2012024252 901733947 257493
2012024365 901733700
2012030848 901751693 260720 260956 264843 264844
So I want to tell awk to print column 2 to column n for n greater than 2 without printing blank lines when there is no info in column n of that row, all in one column like the following.
901749095
901744459
258789
901735922
901738573
257784
901742004
901738925
257813
257822
901741040
901733947
257493
901733700
901751693
260720
260956
264843
264844
This is the first time I am using awk, so bear with me. I wrote this from command line which works:
awk '{i=2;
while ($i ~ /[0-9]+/)
{
printf "%s\n", $i
i++
}
}' bth.data
It is more of a seeking approval than asking a question whether it is the right way of doing something like this in AWK or is there a better/shorter way of doing it.
Note that the actual input file could be millions of lines.
Thanks