SED help - cleaning up code, extra spaces won't go away
Hello,
W/in the script I'm working on, I have a need to take a column from a file, and format it so I can have a variable that will egrep for & invert the regex from another file.
My solution is this:
egrep "$VAR2" file.txt >> newfile.txt
egrep -v "$VAR2" file.txt >> newfile.txt
The above works, but it's just ugly sed code.
All together...
input.txt:
... echo $VAR, prints: | b | e | h
So I'm running the variable again, through "another filter":
... echo $VAR2, prints b|e|h
... which is what I'd need for a good egrep command.
What I don't understand, why 'this' isn't working:
???
It'll produce something like this:
b e h
... I'm losing the "|", and the spaces are still there?
Can someone please help me understand what I'm doing wrong w/ SED? I can get the results I want, but it's ugly. Is what I'm doing correct? Lastly... if there's nothing wrong w/ how I'm doing things... is there a better or more efficient way?
Thanks everybody.
Last edited by vgersh99; 04-24-2010 at 09:53 AM..
Reason: code tag added
...
What I don't understand, why 'this' isn't working:
???
It'll produce something like this:
b e h
... I'm losing the "|", and the spaces are still there?
...
Well, I do see the "|" characters in my output:
But if I assign the quoted output of that pipeline to a shell variable, then spaces are introduced.
The command pipeline's output did *not* have spaces at the end:
So I guess the shell replaces those newlines by blank spaces when it is assigned to a (shell) variable:
Here's another way to extract a pipe-delimited output from the file using plain awk:
But if I assign the quoted output of that pipeline to a shell variable, then spaces are introduced.
The value of $VAR does contain the newlines. It may seem that the shell is converting newlines to spaces, but it is not. Since the variable expansion is unquoted, it's splitting the result into words at each of those newlines (and spaces and tabs, assuming a default value for IFS). echo never sees the newlines. echo does its job, printing its arguments as space-delimited list. If VAR is double-quoted, echo will be invoked with one argument which will contain newlines.
Sidenote: Just as echo isn't seeing any of the newlines (because the shell "consumed" them during the field splitting step), echo is not seeing any of the spaces either. You are just less likely to miss them since echo prints a space to delimit its arguments, which are often space delimited to begin with. (Although you would notice that multiple-consecutive spaces are squeezed into one.)
What I don't understand, why 'this' isn't working:
???
It'll produce something like this:
b e h
... I'm losing the "|", and the spaces are still there?
Can someone please help me understand what I'm doing wrong w/ SED? I can get the results I want, but it's ugly. Is what I'm doing correct? Lastly... if there's nothing wrong w/ how I'm doing things... is there a better or more efficient way?
Thanks everybody.
I cannot reproduce the "b e h" pipe-loss result.
My results:
Personally, I'm partial to ...
... and ...
Regards,
Alister
Hello,
I have an xml file and my aim is to grab each line in keywords file and search the string in another file.
When keyword is found in xml file,I expect the script to go to previous line in the xml file and grab the string/value between two strings. It's almost working with an error.
tab... (6 Replies)
Hi Everyone,
Searching the forum, I came across another closed thread, that appears to be either the same problem, or very close to what I'm experiencing. Closed thread for reference is at: https://www.unix.com/shell-programming-and-scripting/241664-removing-cr-lf-till-number-fields-full.html
... (4 Replies)
hi,
i need to remove the extra spaces in the 2nd field.
Sample:
abc|bd |bkd123 .. 1space
abc|badf |bakdsf123 .. 2space
abc|bqe |bakuowe .. 3space
Output:
abc|bd|bkd123
abc|badf|bakdsf123
abc|bqe|bakuowe
i used the following command, (9 Replies)
hi,
i need to remove the extra spaces in the filed.
Sample:
abc~bd ~bkd123 .. 1space
abc~badf ~bakdsf123 .. 2space
abc~bqed ~bakuowe .. 3space
output:
abc~bd ~bkd123 .. 1space
abc~badf~bakdsf123 .. 2space
abc~bqed~bakuowe .. 3space
i used the following command, (2 Replies)
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I need the help from the experts like I have created one file with text like:
a b c d
e f g h
i j k l
So my question is that i have to write the script in which like in the first sentence it will take only one space after d and remove all the extra space in the end.I dont... (8 Replies)
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I have a string like this and i want to remove extra spaces that exists between the words.
Here is the sentence.
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I have a source file as mentioned below: I want to remove all the extra spaces between the fields.
a b--------|sa df-------|3232---|3
sf sa------|afs sdf-----|43-----|33
a b c------|adfsa dsf---|23-32|23
*Here '-' idicates spaces
Now, I want output as below:
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I have a huge file, a part of it is :-
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Hi...
I am quite new to Unix and would like an issue to be resolved.
I have a file in the format below;
4,Reclaim,ECXTEST02,abc123,Harry Potter,5432 6730 0327 5469,0603,,MC,,1200,EUR,sho-001,,1,,,abc123,1223
I would like my output to be as follows;
4,Reclaim,ECXTEST02,abc123,Harry... (4 Replies)