Shell Programming and Scripting

let me start out by saying i have ZERO exp with any kind of scripting, so sorry if this is really basic stuff.....

For example, I need to have a script that will search a file and find this line in the file:

*.cat;dog;kennel;house;barn;horse;hay;coat hat

and remove the "coat" from the line. The space between coat and hat is a tab (if that matters).

Code:

sed 's/coat  hat$/hat/'  inputfile > outputfile

See the /coat...hat/ part? the dotted line is really a single tab character, so the /coat hat/
bit above has a tab for whitepsace in it.

Hi,

Replacing the same file:

Code:

$ perl -lpi -e 's/coat\s*//g' infile

Get a backup of the original file:

Code:

$ perl -lpi.bak -e 's/coat\s*//g' infile

Regards,
Birei

thanks, but I think this might be missing something? I tested it like this:

sed 's/coat (tab) hat$/hat/' myfile > myfile

and it ended up deleting everything else in the file, and all i want removed is 'coat'

maybe i'm the one missing something?? ha.

---------- Post updated at 02:07 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:06 PM ----------

thanks for this reply, but will this work on the ONE line if 'coat' appears multiple times within the file?

Hi,

Yeah. It should delete all 'coat' of all lines altought the word appears several times per line.

Regards,
Birei.

Ok, that's what I thought, but I only want the instance of 'coat' in that specific line removed. I want all the other instances of 'coat' left alone. I should have been more clear to begin with.