Shell script to find/replace build new TAB record

Hi to all, newbe to the world of shell scripting, but I hope someone will
have an idea I can use. Have a large text file that contains one big memo
field with several constants and a value, most of the time. Plan to convert
this file to a MySQL as a table that will have several fields plus a large
text memo remaining.

For the most part this memo field has constants like “P:” for phone number,
and “Name:” for the persons name, with there values following in the front
part of this memo.
Have been using the sed command with the constants that I know have values
and are physically in correct positions. Example “ FixedRecord=`sed –e
“s/[\ ]* P: / /”` to change the phone number constant to a tab in front of
the phone number value. After several –e extensions of sed the FixedRecord
is echo to a file for later processing.

Now I need to figure out a way to do the same thing for constants that may
or may not have values following them in the rest of the record. Anyone
know of an easy way to check if a constant exist, and if it dose exist,
dose it have a value.

For example I want to check for the existence of “Item Number: Desc: Start
Date: End Date: Duration: Project: Supervisor:” constants then check if
they have values following them. So far I have done the following script
RecordPart_1to19=`OrigRecord | cut –d’ ‘ -f1-19` # first 19 tab fields of
record
RecordPart_20=`OrigRecord | cut –d’ ‘ –f20` # rest of record to search
for new fields
RecordPart_20 contains the following for tab conversion.
Item Number: H14J649
Missing Desc: # this constant is missing and so is it’s value, TAB still
required
Start Date: 9/16/2004
End Date:
Duration: 0017
Project:
Supervisor: John Doe

Results I want would be that the new record I build would contain
“$RecordPart_1to19 TAB H14J649 TAB TAB 9/16/2004 TAB TAB 0017 TAB TAB John
Doe TAB $RecordPart_20”
# RecordPart_20 when outputted should only contain what remains after the
found constants and constant values are removed.

Just need some ideas or be pointed to an example script that shows how to
accomplish this task.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

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