In VIM I often need to convert columns of RA/Dec from Sexagesimal into Decimal format. %!awk '{ra = ($2+$3/60+$4/3600)*15; dec = $6+$7/60+$8/3600; print $1,"ra=",ra,", dec= ",$5,dec}' The far more irritating inverse operation: `` %!awk '{h=($2/15); h=h-(h%1); m=($2-h*15)/15*60; m=m-(m%1); s=($2-h*15-m*15/60)/15*3600; d=-($3-$3%1); am=(-$3-d)*60; am=am-(am%1); as=(-$3-d-am/60)*3600; printf "%s %02i:%02i:%02.2f, -%02i:%02i:%02.2f %s %s %sn" , $1,h,m,s,d,am,as,$4,$5,$6}' ``