awk custom printf command generation - bash

Question

TL;DR - I have a variable which looks like a format specifier ($TEMP) which I need to use with awk printf.
So by doing this:
awk '-v foo="$temp" {....{printf foo} else {print $_}}' tempfile1.txt > tmp && mv tmp tempfile1.txt
Bash should see this:
awk '{.....{printf "%-5s %-6s %...\n", $1, $2, $3....} else {print $_}}' tempfile1.txt > tmp && mv tmp tempfile1.txt
Sample Input:
col1 col2 col3
aourwyo5637[dfs] 67tyd 8746.0000
tomsd - 4
o938743[34* 0 834.92
.
.
.
Expected Output:
col1 col2 col3
aourwyo5637[dfs] 67tyd 8746.0000
tomsd - 4
o938743[34* 0646sggg 834.92
.
.
.
Long Version
I am new to scripting and after over 5 hours of scouring the internet and doing what I believe is a patchwork of information, I have hit a brick wall.
Scenario:
So I have a multiple random tables I need to open in a directory. Since I do not know anything about a given table except that I need to format all data that is on line 4 and all lines after line 14 of the file.
I need to make a custom printf command in awk on the fly so the padding for each column is equal to a value (say 5 SPACES) so the table looks pretty once I open it up.
This is what I am come up with so far:
awk '{
for (i=1;i<=NF;i++)
{
max_length=length($i);
if ( max_length > linesize[i] )
{
linesize[i]=max_length+5;
}
}}
END{
for (i = 1; i<=length(linesize); i++)
{
print linesize[i] >> "tempfile1.txt"
}
}' file1.txt
# remove all blank lines in tempfile1.txt
awk 'NF' tempfile1.txt > tmp && mv tmp tempfile1.txt
# Get number of entries in tempfile1.txt
n=`awk 'END {print NR}' tempfile1.txt`
# This for loop generates the pattern I need for the printf command
declare -a a
for((i=0;i<$n;i++))
do
a[i]=`awk -v i=$((i+1)) 'FNR == i {print}' tempfile1.txt`
temp+=%-${a[i]}s' '
temp2+='$'$((i+1))', '
#echo "${a[$i]}";
#echo "$sub"
done
temp='"'${temp::-2}'\n", '
# echo "$temp"
temp=$temp${temp2::-2}''
# echo "$temp"
awk <something here>
# Tried the one below and it gave an error
awk -v tem="$temp" '{printf {tem}}
So ideally what I would like is the awk command is to look like this by simply putting the bash variable temp in the awk command.
So by doing this:
awk '-v foo="$temp" {if(FNR >=14 || FNR == 4) {printf foo} else {print $_}}' tempfile1.txt > tmp && mv tmp tempfile1.txt
Bash should see this:
awk '{if(FNR >=14 || FNR == 4) {printf "%-5s %-6s %...\n", $1, $2, $3....} else {print $_}}' tempfile1.txt > tmp && mv tmp tempfile1.txt

Answer 1

It sounds like this MIGHT be what you want but it's still hard to tell from your question:
$ cat tst.awk
BEGIN { OFS=" " }
NR==FNR {
for (i=1;i<=NF;i++) {
width[i] = (width[i] > length($i) ? width[i] : length($i))
}
next
}
{
for (i=1;i<=NF;i++) {
printf "%-*s%s", width[i], $i, (i<NF?OFS:ORS)
}
}
$ awk -f tst.awk file file
col1 col2 col3
aourwyo5637[dfs] 67tyd 8746.0000
tomsd - 4
o938743[34* 0 834.92
I ran it against the sample input from your question after removing all the spurious .s.

Answer 2

# Tried the one below and it gave an error
awk -v tem="$temp" '{printf {tem}}
' at end of line is missing
{tem} is wrong; just write tem
printf's , expr-list is missing
\n is missing
Corrected:
awk -v tem="$temp" "{printf tem\"\n\", $temp2 0}"
or
awk "{printf \"$temp\n\", $temp2 0}"
(simpler).