Align rows in text file with command line -

i have data in text file data rows repeated after several columns , each new block shares first column of row labels. i'd use command line align rows single table.

the data text file looks like:

values      samplea     sampleb     samplec value1      1.00        2.00        3.00 value2      3.00        2.00        1.00 value3      2.00        1.00        3.00  values      sampled     samplee     samplef value1      1.00        2.00        3.00 value2      3.00        2.00        1.00 value3      2.00        1.00        3.00 

and i'd resulting file like:

values      samplea     sampleb     samplec     sampled     samplee     samplef value1      1.00        2.00        3.00        1.00        2.00        3.00 value2      3.00        2.00        1.00        3.00        2.00        1.00 value3      2.00        1.00        3.00        2.00        1.00        3.00 

this solution creates lots of temp files, cleans after.

# put each paragraph it's own file: awk -v rs= '{print > sprintf("%s_%06d", filename, nr)}' data.txt   # now, join them, , align columns  join data.txt_* | column -t | tee data.txt.joined  # , cleanup temp files rm data.txt_* 

verify afterwards with: wc -l data.txt data.txt.joined