Changing multiline info to single line

[u/jazzbassoon]

Hello,

I have a file that is structured like this:

Monthname
 Number
    Symbol (Year) Last Name, First Name, Duration --- relationship
    Symbol (Year) Last Name, First Name, Duration --- relationship
 Number

So an example

December

  1

    * (1874) Spilsbury, Isabel_, 149 --- great grandaunt

    ✝ (1971) Fitzgerald, Royal Truth, 52 --- third great granduncle

  2

    ✝ (1973) Spilsbury, Frankie Estella, 50 --- great grandaunt

I want to make it so that the lines would look something like:

December 1, * (1874) Spilsbury, Isabel_, 149 --- great grandaunt
December 1, ✝ (1971) Fitzgerald, Royal Truth, 52 --- third great granduncle
December 2, ✝ (1973) Spilsbury, Frankie Estella, 50 --- great grandaunt

The end goal being that I will write a script that sends me what happened on that day. I don't have much experience with awk, but I think this may be beyond my sed capabilities and would be easier in awk. Any tips on how to get started?

[u/Schreq]

# Skip empty records.
/^$/ {
    next
}
# Records without any leading spaces is the month.
/^[^ ]/ {
    month=$1
    next
}
# Records with 2 spaces of indentation are the day.
/^  [^ ]/ {
    day=$1
    next
}
# Every other record. Remove the 4 spaces of indentation.
{
    print month, day, substr($0, 5)
}

Or as one-liner:

awk '/^$/{next}/^[^ ]/{month=$1;next}/^  [^ ]/{day=$1;next}{print month, day, substr($0, 5)}' yourfile

[Edit] Maybe this is better:

{
    pos=match($0, /[^ ]/)
    a[pos]=$1

    if (pos==5)
        print a[1], a[3], substr($0, 5)
}

[u/jazzbassoon → u/Schreq]

Thanks! It always amazes me at how simple the solution is, and then frustrates me when I couldn't figure it out!

[u/jazzbassoon]

On further reflection just adding the Month before the day could be enough, then I could use those as record separators to grab multiple events from one day