Exact String replacement with sed


 
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# 1  
Old 09-26-2009
Exact String replacement with sed

Hi,

What should be the syntax to match and replace an exact string using sed? And not replacing any string that contain the value?

Eg.

testtest
etstetst
testetst
testtttt
etsttest
testtesttest
testtest

I only want to replace the line with exact string "testtest" with "123456"

The sed syntax I used was "sed 's/testtest/123456/g' temp1.properties"

This way it replaced testtesttest as 123456test which is not a required result.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Eugene
# 2  
Old 09-26-2009
It depends on if it is going to be on lines by itself, or if it is going to be its own word, such as "rat" inside of "berate". Word boundaries would probably work (those are the \b escapes in the second part of the code below).

Code:
-bash-3.2$ sed 's/^testtest$/123456/g' test.txt
123456
etstetst
testetst
testtttt
etsttest
testtesttest
123456
-bash-3.2$ sed 's/\btesttest\b/123456/g' test.txt
123456
etstetst
testetst
testtttt
etsttest
testtesttest
123456

# 3  
Old 09-26-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhije
It depends on if it is going to be on lines by itself, or if it is going to be its own word, such as "rat" inside of "berate". Word boundaries would probably work (those are the \b escapes in the second part of the code below).

Code:
-bash-3.2$ sed 's/^testtest$/123456/g' test.txt
123456
etstetst
testetst
testtttt
etsttest
testtesttest
123456
-bash-3.2$ sed 's/\btesttest\b/123456/g' test.txt
123456
etstetst
testetst
testtttt
etsttest
testtesttest
123456

If may be as part of a line

Eg.

value = testtest
value1 = etstetst
value1 = testetst
value2 = testtttt
value1 = etsttest
value2 = testtesttest
value1 = testtest

Regards
Eugene
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