Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Tab spaces with sed

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Tab spaces with sed
# 1  
Old 07-14-2004
Tab spaces with sed
Anyone know how to represent tabs when doing subsitutions in sed? I have tried using \t but it doesn't seem to work.
# 2  
Old 07-14-2004
Use awk instead, eg: awk '{gsub(" ","\t");print}'
# 3  
Old 07-14-2004
As long as you don't have other whitespace (i.e. spaces) in the file, try
Code:
sed 's/[[:space:]]/TAB/g' foofile

This will work on any sed that supports POSIX character classes - (such as the sed supplied with HP-UX 10.20 which doesn't like \t but does like [[:space:]]).

Newer sed's like GNU sed support the \t style escapes.

Ta,
ZB
# 4  
Old 11-17-2005
What if I have a tab followed by number of spaces...

I want to remove all the spaces before and after tab..

Please help
# 5  
Old 11-17-2005
Code:
sed 's/[[:space:]]*/TAB/g' foofile

# 6  
Old 01-24-2007
tab OR spaces
Quote:
Originally Posted by reborg
Code:
sed 's/[[:space:]]*/TAB/g' foofile

What if I have a tab OR a number of spaces...

I want to capture all the spaces OR tabs..

basically, i have a phonebook, in which some names and number are seperated by tabs, and some with spaces. So I should capture tab OR spaces

Code:
sed 's/[ [[:space:]]] */TAB/g' foofile

won't work!
# 7  
Old 01-24-2007
Another question:
Code:
username > sed "s/^\(.*\)[[:space:]] *[0-9][0-9]*.*$/\1/"
john doe        34 4567
john doe        34

(between doe and 34 there is tab, and between numbers there is space)

why is it not returning only "john doe" ?
 
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Convert mutiple spaces file to single tab

I have the following file I wanted to convert mutiple spaces to tab: I tried cat filename | tr ' ' '\t' or sed 's/ */ /' FILE but it looses the format 5557263102 5557263102 5552074858 5726310211 5557263102 5557263102 5557263103 5557263103 2142406768 ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: amir07
2 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Removing tab spaces at the end of each line

I have a file which contains the data lines like below.I want to remove the tab spaces at the end of each line.I have tried with the command sed 's/\+$//' file.but it does not work.Can anyone help me on this? 15022 15022 15022 15022 15022 15022 15023 15023 15023 15023 15023 ... (16 Replies)
Discussion started by: am24
16 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to catch a two word keyword which may contain a new line(may include spaces or tab) in it?

How to catch a two word keyword which may contain a new line(may include spaces or tab) in it. for example there is a file a.txt. $more a.txt create view as (select from ......... .......... ( select .... ( select ...... .. select only no ((( number ( select end (12 Replies)
Discussion started by: neelmani
12 Replies

4. AIX

Replace all TAB characters with white spaces

Dear Gurus Can you please advise me on how to Replace all TAB characters with white spaces in a text file in AIX? Either using vi or any utilities (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: tenderfoot
2 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Replace tab or any spaces with "

my content: samaccountname employeeid useraccountcontrol description i want it to look like this: "samaccountname","employeeid","useraccountcontrol","description" (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: tjmannonline
2 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Removing blank spaces, tab spaces from file

Hello All, I am trying to remove all tabspaces and all blankspaces from my file using sed & awk, but not getting proper code. Please help me out. My file is like this (<b> means one blank space, <t> means one tab space)- $ cat file NARESH<b><b><b>KUMAR<t><t>PRADHAN... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: NARESH1302
3 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Replace spaces between strings in a line with tab

Hi All I am having problem in substitution of any number of spaces, or a combination of space and tab in between strings in the lines of text file. Is there any way out in Perl? Please help me. e.g., Say the input is in the following format:- XX yyy zzz... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: my_Perl
1 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Converting 2 or more spaces to a single tab

I'm new to bash and want to know a simple sed, awk, or grep script that will find all instances of 2 or more spaces and convert them to a single tab. Thanks for the help in advance. (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: jkandel
1 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

set tab to 4 spaces in vi

Hi, I want to set my tab lenght to 4 spaces instead of 8. And when i press tab instead of inserting tab it should insert 4 spaces. if i do set ts=4 this set tab=4. But this inserts tab. Say suppose i copy the code from unix to texpad/wordpad.Textpad will interpret tab as 8 spaces.(I can set... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: pinnacle
4 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Replace blank spaces by single tab, and right alignment

Folks, I am wondering if anyone solve this problem. What I want to know is, 1. Delete all white spaces including leading blank space in each line (e.g. line 2), and replace such spaces by single tab except leading blank space 2. Then, align all columns to the right. But, output white space... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Jae
1 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question