04-12-2009
Special characters in a bash variable in sed
Hello,
I am trying the following:
echo __CHANGEME__ >> testfile
VAR1="&&&"
sed -i "s|__CHANGEME__|${VAR1}|" testfile
cat testfile
This results in testfile containing
__CHANGEME____CHANGEME____CHANGEME__
Whereas I want it to result in
&&&
I understand that if
VAR1="\&\&\&"
then it would work.
But this is a simplified version of my script. In my actual script VAR1 is coming in as a user input/randomly generated ASCII string.
I also understand that I can write some code to insert escape characters in "VAR1". But I am hoping that there a more intelligent way to do this using sed only. For some reason '&' is the only special character that is causing problems.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Last edited by linuxnewbeee; 04-12-2009 at 05:48 AM..
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LEARN ABOUT OPENSOLARIS
regex
regex(1F) FMLI Commands regex(1F)
NAME
regex - match patterns against a string
SYNOPSIS
regex [-e] [-v "string"] [pattern template] ...
pattern [template]
DESCRIPTION
The regex command takes a string from the standard input, and a list of pattern / template pairs, and runs regex() to compare the string
against each pattern until there is a match. When a match occurs, regex writes the corresponding template to the standard output and
returns TRUE. The last (or only) pattern does not need a template. If that is the pattern that matches the string, the function simply
returns TRUE. If no match is found, regex returns FALSE.
The argument pattern is a regular expression of the form described in regex(). In most cases, pattern should be enclosed in single quotes
to turn off special meanings of characters. Note that only the final pattern in the list may lack a template.
The argument template may contain the strings $m0 through $m9, which will be expanded to the part of pattern enclosed in ( ... )$0 through
( ... )$9 constructs (see examples below). Note that if you use this feature, you must be sure to enclose template in single quotes so that
FMLI does not expand $m0 through $m9 at parse time. This feature gives regex much of the power of cut(1), paste(1), and grep(1), and some
of the capabilities of sed(1). If there is no template, the default is $m0$m1$m2$m3$m4$m5$m6$m7$m8$m9.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-e Evaluates the corresponding template and writes the result to the standard output.
-v "string" Uses string instead of the standard input to match against patterns.
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Cutting letters out of a string
To cut the 4th through 8th letters out of a string (this example will output strin and return TRUE):
`regex -v "my string is nice" '^.{3}(.{5})$0' '$m0'`
Example 2 Validating input in a form
In a form, to validate input to field 5 as an integer:
valid=`regex -v "$F5" '^[0-9]+$'`
Example 3 Translating an environment variable in a form
In a form, to translate an environment variable which contains one of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the letters a, b, c, d, e:
value=`regex -v "$VAR1" 1 a 2 b 3 c 4 d 5 e '.*' 'Error'`
Note the use of the pattern '.*' to mean "anything else".
Example 4 Using backquoted expressions
In the example below, all three lines constitute a single backquoted expression. This expression, by itself, could be put in a menu defini-
tion file. Since backquoted expressions are expanded as they are parsed, and output from a backquoted expression (the cat command, in this
example) becomes part of the definition file being parsed, this expression would read /etc/passwd and make a dynamic menu of all the login
ids on the system.
`cat /etc/passwd | regex '^([^:]*)$0.*$' '
name=$m0
action=`message "$m0 is a user"`'`
DIAGNOSTICS
If none of the patterns match, regex returns FALSE, otherwise TRUE.
NOTES
Patterns and templates must often be enclosed in single quotes to turn off the special meanings of characters. Especially if you use the
$m0 through $m9 variables in the template, since FMLI will expand the variables (usually to "") before regex even sees them.
Single characters in character classes (inside []) must be listed before character ranges, otherwise they will not be recognized. For exam-
ple, [a-zA-Z_/] will not find underscores (_) or slashes (/), but [_/a-zA-Z] will.
The regular expressions accepted by regcmp differ slightly from other utilities (that is, sed, grep, awk, ed, and so forth).
regex with the -e option forces subsequent commands to be ignored. In other words, if a backquoted statement appears as follows:
`regex -e ...; command1; command2`
command1 and command2 would never be executed. However, dividing the expression into two:
`regex -e ...``command1; command2`
would yield the desired result.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWcsu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
awk(1), cut(1), grep(1), paste(1), sed(1), regcmp(3C), attributes(5)
SunOS 5.11 12 Jul 1999 regex(1F)