UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Dear Members,

Suppose i have a variable test which stores a string as below:

test='John drives+++++++++a+++++car'

now i want to use sed on the above variable and replace + with a white space, so that i get

echo $test should give me

'john drives a car'

Between "drives" and "a" i need 9 white spaces and between "a" and "car" i need 5 white spaces since i have 9 and 5 positive signs before.

How can i do this?

Code:

echo 'John drives+++++++++a+++++car' | sed 's/+/ /g'