Bash: Sum fields of a line

Question

I have a file with the following format:

a 1 2 3 4
b 7 8
c 120

I want it to be parsed into:

a 10
b 15
c 120

I know this can be easily done with awk, but I'm not familiar with the syntax and can't get it to work for me.

Thanks for any help

Answer 1

ok simple awk primer:

awk '{ for (i=2;i<=NF;i++) { total+=$i }; print $1,total; total=0 }' file

NF is an internal variable that is reset on each line and is equal to the number of fields on that line so

for (i=2;i<=NF;i++) starts a for loop starting at 2

total+=$i means the var total has the value of the i'th field added to it. and is performed for each iteration of the loop above.

print $1,total prints the 1st field followed by the contents of OFS variable (space by default) then the total for that line.

total=0 resets the totals var ready for the next iteration.

all of the above is done on each line of input.

For more info see grymoires intro here