hi,
I need to write a command to look into a text file, find lines that contain patterns of three or more characters that repeat once, and put perenthesizes around them. so for example, the line "123test123" would be changed to "(123)test(123)" and "abcdeabcde" to "(abcde)(abcde)".
any hint is appreciated.

Hello,

I can help you with 1st query , where you are trying to change "123test123" to "(123)test(123)" .

This can be done easily using SED .

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Syntax: sed -e 's/\(123\)/(\1)/g' :--> g parameter will replace the instance globally in file.

Example: echo 123test123 | sed -e 's/\(123\)/(\1)/g'
Output : (123)test(123)
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Try this out in your file and let us know how it goes at your end.

Thanks,

hi thanks for the reply, but I need the sed command to find all repeating patterns itself and put them inside (). I can not specify the pattern for it to look for.
it can be 123 or abc or anything that is repeated through the line.
thank you

Hello Metalwarrior,

Do you have any sigle pattern to replace ?

Or any patter which contains 3 or more than characters ?

Thanks,

ok let's say I have this line for example:
thispatternthatpattern
I want the sed automatically find the the repeated patterns and put them in (). so after the chagne it would look like this,
this(pattern)that(pattern).