Shell Programming and Scripting

<refa>Part<Description</refa>

<refa>Part Description</refa>

$ echo "<refa>Part<Description</refa>" | awk -F">" '{split($2,A,"<");$2=A[1]" "A[2]"<"A[3]}1' OFS=">"
<refa>Part Description</refa>

echo "<refa>Part<Description</refa>" | sed 's/\(.*Part\)\(.*\)\(Description.*\)/\1 \3/g'

<refa>Part Description</refa>

sed 's#\(.\)\(<\)\([^/]\)#\1 \3#g' file

#!/bin/bash --posix
text="<refa>Random string to find gt>or<lt.</refa>"
newtext=""
for subscript in $( seq 6 1 $[ ( ${#text} - 8 ) ] )
do
	if [ "${text:$subscript:1}" == "<" ] || [ "${text:$subscript:1}" == ">" ]
	then
		newtext="$newtext "
	else
		newtext="$newtext${text:$subscript:1}"
	fi
done
text="<refa>$newtext</refa>"
echo "$text"

Last login: Thu Jan 30 19:20:55 on ttys000
AMIGA:barrywalker~> chmod 755 gt_lt.sh
AMIGA:barrywalker~> ./gt_lt.sh
<refa>Random string to find gt or lt.</refa>
AMIGA:barrywalker~> _