Can SED Search By Column?

Korn0474 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

Hi all,

I am trying to search for a keyword in the fourth column of a massive carrot(^) delimited file and unfortunately I cannot use AWK (which would have been ideal). Can SED (or maybe even GREP) perform a search like this?

vidyadhar85 · #2 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

are you ready to go with the combination of cut and sed command??

Korn0474 · #3 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by vidyadhar85

are you ready to go with the combination of cut and sed command??

I'm open to any suggestions at this point

vidyadhar85 · #4 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

then this will do..

Quote:

cut -f4 -d \^ filename | sed 's/searchpattern/replacepattern/g'

Korn0474 · #5 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by vidyadhar85

then this will do..

Quote:

cut -f4 -d \^ filename | sed 's/searchpattern/replacepattern/g'

Thanks, but there is no replacement pattern in my case. I just need it to return the complete line that matches the search pattern to me. I tried modifying your example by omitting the "replacepattern" argument but that gave me an error that said it couldn't be parsed.

vidyadhar85 · #6 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

for that use this..

Quote:

cut -f4 -d \^ filename | sed -ne '/searchpattern/p'

Korn0474 · #7 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by vidyadhar85

for that use this..

Quote:

cut -f4 -d \^ filename | sed -ne '/searchpattern/p'

Thanks for working with me on this problem. I need to ask your help with one more correction. This command you suggested outputs only the search pattern when found. How can I make it output the entire line where the search pattern was found?

Example: If I'm searching for "SMITH" then cut -f4 -d \^ filename | sed -ne '/SMITH/p' returns:
SMITH
SMITH

I need it to return:
data1^adbde^1981^SMITH
ender2^23232^1972^SMITH

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