Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi i have a file which contains 2 lines, line 1 is static data. line 2 is a very large string(over 3000char or much more). in that string are tags which i want to delete.

e.g.

Code:

<order1>123</order1><tag1>data</tag1><new>1</new><order2>124</order2><tag1>data</tag1>

all one one line. now i want to delete the string that starts with <tag1> and end with </tag1>. so that this will be the result:

Code:

<order1>123</order1><new>1</new><order2>124</order2>

what i have is :

Code:

sed -i 's#<tag1>.*</tag1>##g' filename

But what happens that it delete everything between the first <tag1> and the last </tag1>.

So that the result is:

Code:

<order1>123</order1>

you see that everything is delete between the first <tag1> and the last </tag1>

Moderator's Comments:

Please use code tags, ty.

Code:

sed 's/<tag1>[^>]*<\/tag1>//g' infile
<order1>123</order1><new>1</new><order2>124</order2>

Hi zaxxon,

Sorry but the code doesn't seem to work. it just leaves the tag1 in the file.

Hm - I just used your example:

Code:

$> cat infile
<order1>123</order1><tag1>data</tag1><new>1</new><order2>124</order2><tag1>data</tag1>
$> sed 's/<tag1>[^>]*<\/tag1>//g' infile
<order1>123</order1><new>1</new><order2>124</order2>

Every tag1-tag is gone with contents between it over the whole line. It works with GNU sed and sed on AIX. No clue why it doesn't work on your box tbh. Maybe someone else got an idea, sorry.

It indeed seems to work with your code and mine little example. But the real file is much longer about 3500 char on one line.

---------- Post updated at 03:38 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:13 PM ----------

Zaxxon,

I know why it is not working in the real file the <tag> isn't directly followed by the </tag> but it is like this:

Code:

<tag1><cd>value</cd></tag1>

it should delete everything between <tag> and </tag>

It could be that there is some constellation is in this line that the pattern just does not match. Maybe attach the line in a file to a post so people can have a look at it.