Shell Programming and Scripting

I've been using sed to help with reformatting some html content into latex slides using the beamer class. Since I'm new to sed, I've been reading a lot about it but I'm stuck on this one problem.

I have text that looks like this:

*******************

line of text that needs to be moved...

line of text that I want to keep.

line of text that I want to keep ... with a /latex_command{

************************Note: the above pattern repeats 500 times.

What I want to do is yank the first line and place at the end of the third line.

So far, I've invoked "sed -f command_file inputfile.tex >output_file.tex"

My command file begins like this:

/search string for file I want to move/h
/\/latex_command/x


I know this is wrong because it obliterates the third line altogether as it makes the switch wit the hold buffer. I can't find in the documentation the right way to append the first line to the third line without obliterating the third line all together. I also want to yank the first line so that it is removed completely.

I've tried the "x" command with an various search strings, but I end up
obliterating teh third line of text.

I fear my real problem is a vastly limited knowledge of the search syntax for sed. I mostly try to use what I know from vim.

I'm new to this forum. If I'm asking the wrong question in the wrong place or in the wrong way, just let me know. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. [note: I only started to use sed because I couldn't find the right way to do this in vim. Maybe there is a way in vim to do this?]

If I understand the requirement:

Code:

$ cat input
1111111
line2
line3
x
y
z
1111111
line2
line3
x
y
z
$
$ cat sedder
#! /usr/bin/ksh
exec < input
sed '/1111/{h;d;};/line3/{G;s/\n//;}'
exit 0
$
$ ./sedder
line2
line31111111
x
y
z
line2
line31111111
x
y
z
$

is probably pretty close.

Assume your text is:

Code:

Move me1

Keep me1

Append to me1

Move me2

Keep me2

Append to me2

Move me3

Keep me3

Append to me3

Then a sed script like:

Code:

/^Move me/h
/^Move me/d
/^Append to me/b a
b
:a {
G
}

english:
For lines beginning with Move me, put them into the hold buffer.
For lines beginning with Move me, delete them (remember we have it in the hold buffer).
For lines beginning with Append to me, branch to label a
For all else, just default, print and read next
At label a, append the hold buffer to the pattern space... it then goes to default, print and read next


Would produce an output like:

Code:

Keep me1

Append to me1
Move me1


Keep me2

Append to me2
Move me2


Keep me3

Append to me3
Move me3

Am I getting close to what you were wanting??

Thank you both Perderabo and cjcox. I can't get to my terminal now, but I will try both approaches. I'm sure I'll learn something with both. Thanks again and I'll report back with results.

Your pretty close use h;d; to hold and delete original line and G to append:

Code:

/search string for file I want to move/{h;d;}
/\/latex_command/G