using awk to selectively change word order in a column -

i want change text:

fred flintstone:father:male wilma flintstone:mother:female flintstone, pebbles:daughter:female barney rubble:father:male rubble, betty:mother:female bam bam rubble:son:male 

into:

flintstone, fred:father:male flintstone, wilma:mother:female flintstone, pebbles:daughter:female rubble, barney:father:male rubble, betty:mother:female rubble, bam bam:son:male 

is possible in 1 line of awk? or better extract first column manipulate text , reimport column?

here gawk 1 liner:

awk -f: '$1=gensub(/([^,]+)[ ]+([^ ,]+)/,"\\2, \\1","1",$1)' yourfile 

• it uses : delimiter -f option
• the gensub function used on $1 in pattern part:
  • if replacement possible, expression true , modifies $1
    • the default action print used implicitly.
  • if expression not match (due comma in $1) line implicitly printed