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Translate wildcard-char "*"

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# 1  
Old 07-13-2011
Translate wildcard-char "*"
Hi,

I am facing an issue while translating "*" character.

This is what I need
Code:
 
Input=/path/to/the/file/data_file*.txt*.tar.gz
Output=/path/to/the/file/data_file\*.txt\*.tar.gz

When I try -
Code:
echo $Input | tr '*' '\*'

nothing happens.

Is there a way to achieve the Output?

-dips
# 2  
Old 07-13-2011
Some shells (zsh, recent bash versions) support the q printf format specification:
Code:
% v=/path/to/the/file/data_file*.txt*.tar.gz 
% printf '%q\n' "$v"                         
/path/to/the/file/data_file\*.txt\*.tar.gz

With bash (>= 3.x) you can assign directly the printf output to a variable:

Code:
4.1.10(4)-release$ v=/path/to/the/file/data_file*.txt*.tar.gz
4.1.10(4)-release$ printf -vv '%q' "$v"
4.1.10(4)-release$ echo "$v"
/path/to/the/file/data_file\*.txt\*.tar.gz

But that will affect other special characters too.
Another option (zsh, ksh93, bash) is:

Code:
4.1.10(4)-release$ v=/path/to/the/file/data_file*.txt*.tar.gz
4.1.10(4)-release$ echo "${v//\*/\*}"
/path/to/the/file/data_file\*.txt\*.tar.gz

sed (not tr!) should be the last resort.
# 3  
Old 07-13-2011
Code:
sed -n 's/\*/\\*/gp' input

Last edited by radoulov; 07-13-2011 at 12:24 PM.. Reason: Code tags.
# 4  
Old 07-13-2011
tr only substitutes single chars for single chars, it can't substitute two chars for one char, which is why you need sed instead.
# 5  
Old 07-15-2011
Thanks everyone!!

I tried ltomuno's command. But the strange thing is that while it worked on unix box it does not in ksh script. I am puzzled.

Unix Box command line:
Code:
[dips ~]$ echo data_file*.txt*.tar.gz | sed 's/\*/\\*/g'
[dips ~]$ data_file\*.txt\*.tar.gz

KSH script:
Code:
 
trans_file_name=`echo data_file*.txt*.tar.gz | sed 's/\*/\\*/g'`

When I ran the script in debug mode; the sed cmd is reduced to
Code:
 
sed 's/\*/\*/g'`

I don't know why it shows only 1 such "\" char. Then I thought that in the script we must escape both "\" & "*" so I changed the cmd to
Code:
 
sed 's/\*/\\\*/g'

Still no change it showed only 1 escape (\) char (while running in debug mode) and hence the output is same as input.
Please suggest what needs to be done to make it work in a KSH script?
- dips
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