BEGIN { id = 0 } $1 == "lastName:" { lastName[id] = substr($0, index($0, $2)) } $1 == "firstName:" { firstName[id] = substr($0, index($0, $2)) } /^$/ { id++ } # empty line END { for (i = 0; i <= id; i++) { if (lastName[i] != "") { printf("%s", lastName[i]) if (firstName[i] != "") printf(", "); } printf("%s\n", firstName[i]) } }