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Changing exact matches with awk from subfields

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# 1  
Old 01-24-2012
Changing exact matches with awk from subfields
To give you some context of my issue the following is some sample dummy data. The field delimiter is "<-->". The 4th field is going to be tags for my notes. The tags should always be unique and sorted alphabetically.
Code:
1<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->1st note<-->1st note<-NL->2 lines
2<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->2nd note<-->2nd note<-NL->more lines<-NL->here
3<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->more notes<-->3rd notes, single line
6<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->what??<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line

The goal is I want to be able to update a single tag across all my notes. The problem I'm having is I can't find a way to select only whole words. i.e. if I want to change the word "note" to "notez", on the 3rd line, "notes" is changed to "notezs".

How can I change only whole words from my field #4? I've tried awk's sub & index commands, different regular expressions and attempts to combine with sed. The environment I'm working in is ksh88 and I'd prefer to use just awk if possible. Perl sadly isn't an option.
# 2  
Old 01-24-2012
if your awk supports strings as separators:

Code:
awk -v FS="<-->" -v OFS="<-->" '{ sub(/note$/, "notez", $4); } 1'

The $ in this case would mean 'end of the field', not 'end of the line', and the substitution would happen only in the fourth field. You could do a loop for(N=1; N<=NF; N++) sub(/note$/, "notez", $N) to substitute in all fields that end with 'note'.
# 3  
Old 01-24-2012
Would that also work when "note" is not the last word in the field? It could vary well be the first, last or anywhere in between. The problem I have run up against with regular expressions was trying to find a way to specify the delimiters of " " or ">" before the word or " " or "<" after the word without replacing them along with the word change. Using [ >]note[ <] also replaces any spaces or brackets next to "note"
# 4  
Old 01-24-2012
I don't see how to do that in awk... you can match them, but you only want part of the match!

sed maybe:

Code:
sed 's/note\([^a-z]\|$\)/notez\1/g'

It will match note followed by any non-alphabetic character, put a 'z' on the end, and put the non-alphabetic character back where it belongs.
# 5  
Old 01-24-2012
Code:
> cat notes.data | sed 's/note\([^a-z]\|$\)/notez\1/g'
1<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->1st note<-->1st note<-NL->2 lines
2<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->2nd note<-->2nd note<-NL->more lines<-NL->here
3<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->more notes<-->3rd notes, single line
6<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->what??<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line

Hmm, not seeing the expected results.

---------- Post updated at 04:12 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:43 PM ----------

Updated the data and the sed statement:
Code:
1<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->1st note<-->1st note<-NL->2 lines
2<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->2nd note<-->2nd note<-NL->more lines<-NL->here
3<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->more notes<-->3rd notes, single line
6<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->what??<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
7<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->my_note<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
8<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->mynote<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line

Code:
> cat notes.data | sed 's/\([^a-z]\)note\([^a-z]\)/\1notez\2/'   
1<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->1st notez<-->1st note<-NL->2 lines
2<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->2nd notez<-->2nd note<-NL->more lines<-NL->here
3<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->more notes<-->3rd notes, single line
6<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->what??<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
7<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->my_notez<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
8<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->mynote<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line

As you can see, this works for all but line #7. "my_note" becomes "my_notez". Any thoughts on how to include underscore's in my exclusion? Or for that matter, any character not a space or a "<" or ">".

Thanks!

---------- Post updated at 04:29 PM ---------- Previous update was at 04:12 PM ----------

Code:
> cat notes.data | sed 's/\([ <>]\)note\([ <>]\)/\1notez\2/'  
1<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->1st notez<-->1st note<-NL->2 lines
2<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->2nd notez<-->2nd note<-NL->more lines<-NL->here
3<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->more notes<-->3rd notes, single line
6<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->what??<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
7<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->my_note<-->another  notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line
8<-->01/20/12<-->01/20/12<-->mynote<-->another notes<-NL->full of <-NL->more<-NL->line

I think I found my answer. The only problem is it edits the 1st occurrence on the line, not just in field #4.
Last edited by adamreiswig; 01-24-2012 at 06:10 PM..
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