Shell Programming and Scripting

Good day!
I'll say right away that I'm not good at regular expressions. I'm very much so still learning them and I wasn't sure if this was technically an emergency to post in the emergency forum.

I have a task at work here that requires me to insert a string after matching another string using vi. I plan on learning more about regular expressions so I can use them in vi and work faster... but the deliverable timeframe (eod today ) doesn't allow me time ... so here I am.

On each line is my search string, in the format of cc11111 where c can be [a-z] and 1 can be [0-9]. Just can't post the actual string here... for example purposes I'll just say it's cc11111

Here's what my example insert string would look like.

Code:

 
,"dd22222","ee33333"

The part that I'm stuck on is that I need to enter my new string at just before the end of the line which contains "}; I need to stick that bugger right in between the " and }. And, I need to do it in vi for auditing purposes. Whatever I try I get substitute pattern match failed.

Any help is greatly appreciated as it will save me alot of time and typing *nods*

Which vi clone are you using? Unfortunately, their regular expression grammars aren't identical.

Regards,
Alister

Well, use sed and then it is a batch and cron friendly script, just like vi with a :, which is just like ex:

Code:

sed '
  s/} *; *$/'"$YOUR_STRING"'&/
 ' in_file >out_file

if you have a line that end like this :

Code:

cc11111"}

and you want to add

Code:

,"dd22222","ee33333"

so that your final line looks like

Code:

cc11111","dd22222","ee33333"}

When in vi type <ESC> to be "command" mode then

Code:

:/cc111111"/s/cc111111"/&,"dd22222","ee33333"/gc

it will ask you for a confirmation (y or n) before every replacement (if you don't want to be prompt, just remove the c (only g)

@alister It functions just like normal vi but it's PowerBroker's vi pbvi.

Thanks ctsgnb! cc11111 could be anywhere in the line and it's our standard policy to add everything new at the end. But, that string does pretty close to what I'm trying to do. That alone is exciting!

Code:

:g/"cc111111"/s/}/,"dd22222","ee33333"}/

Can cc111111 b lines ahead of, } ?

Code:

sed '
  /"cc111111"/{
    :loop
    s/}/,"dd22222","ee33333"}/
    t
    N
    b loop
   }
 ' file_in >file_out

sed allows a bit more than vi : g
Once sed finds cc111111, it tries to slip the new entries in front of the }, and if that works, spits it out, but if there is none, it collects following lines in the buffer until it has the } for the substitute to succeed.

Guys, seriously, wow... just wow! DGPickett that does exactly what I was looking for.

Unfortuantely I can't use sed, needs to be pbvi for keylogging/tracking purposes. If I was to use something else it would be very bad to say the least. I'd probably lose my job. But, I can use vi and it did EXACTLY what I needed it to when I tested it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!