Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


Shell Programming and Scripting

Problem with occurence of square brackets

Login to Discuss or Reply to this Discussion in Our Community

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Problem with occurence of square brackets
# 1  
Old 06-11-2014
Problem with occurence of square brackets
Hello all,

I have the following problem:

Code:
$ cat infile
this is spam [i need this] and i need this too
this is spam [i need this][this is spam] and i need this too
$ perl -nwe '$_ =~ /[^\]]+ \[([^\]]+)\]\[?[^\]]*\]? ([^\]\[]+)$/; print "$1 - $2\n";' infile
i need this - too
i need this - and i need this too

I am not sure how many occurences of these square brackets will show up, at the moment I assume it is 1 for sure, maybe 2, but I always need the 1st and the complete text behind the last closing square bracket. As you can see for the 1st line, this doesn't work.

Any hints are welcome, thanks a lot.
# 2  
Old 06-11-2014
I'm not familiar with perl regex, but you could do it it sed by using 2 substitutions:
Code:
$ cat ~/tmp/file.txt
this is spam [i need this] and i need this too
this is spam [i need this][but not this] and i need this too
this is spam [i need this][but not this] [or this ] and i need this too
$  sed 's/^[^[]*\[\([^]]*\)\]/\1/g; s/\[[^]]*\]//g' ~/tmp/file.txt
i need this and i need this too
i need this and i need this too
i need this  and i need this too

This User Gave Thanks to CarloM For This Post:
zaxxon
# 3  
Old 06-11-2014
I couldn't do it in regex...

Code:
$ awk -F'[][]' '{print $2,$NF}' infile
i need this  and i need this too
i need this  and i need this too

# 4  
Old 06-11-2014
Thanks a lot guys.

@neutronscott:
Because it needs to be run on different platforms which includes Windows, I will have to use Perl - so I can't use awk, sorry I missed to point this out.

@CarloM:
I am curious if I can solve it in one expression. Maybe other gods of RegExp shed some light Smilie I am stuck at the moment. If there is no other way, I will use the 2 separate statements.
# 5  
Old 06-11-2014
Code:
$ sed 's/[^[]*[[]\([^]]*\)]\([[][^]]*]\)*\([^]]*\)$/\1 -- \3/g' infile
i need this --  and i need this too
i need this --  and i need this too

?
This User Gave Thanks to neutronscott For This Post:
zaxxon
# 6  
Old 06-11-2014
May be split can help?

Code:
perl -nwe '@a=split(/\[|\]/,$_); print "$a[1] - $a[$#a]\n";' infile
i need this -  and i need this too

i need this -  and i need this too

i need this -  and i need this too



infile
Code:
this is spam [i need this] and i need this too
this is spam [i need this][this is spam] and i need this too
this is spam [i need this][this is spam][this is spam too] and i need this too

This User Gave Thanks to clx For This Post:
zaxxon
# 7  
Old 06-11-2014
Thanks for the answers, guys.
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

IF statement with square brackets

Hi All, Hope you all are doing good. Yesterday in my project i came across a scenario which i can not guess why it was working in one region and why it was not in another region. Please find my issue below. I am using AIX version 6.0 of UNIX in my project, in shell scripting i have the... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: mad man
1 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Grep number between Square [] brackets

I wanted to store the number inside the square bracket between colon( : ) and closing suqre bracket(]) in some variable. Suppose I have lines like : Input file : 20140320 00:08:23.846 INFO 84] - anything in line 20140320 00:08:23.846 Test 589] - Virtual and lab lab anything... (18 Replies)
Discussion started by: nes
18 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Compare the value in between square brackets in file

I wanted to compare the value inside the Squre bracket after Colon ( : ) based on any value(seperated by or operator | ) inside the variable Thread and if match found then wnated to store in output file Input file : 20140320 00:08:43.918 INO 35] - Corporate hub is 20140320 00:08:43.918... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: nes
2 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Extract text between two square [..] brackets

Hi All, After searching about this, I could find some solutions but I am not sure why it is not working in my case. I have a text file with contents between two square brackets. The text file looks like this: Use tags when you post any code so others can easily read your code. You can... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: shoaibjameel123
2 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Delete text between square brackets and also delete those square brackets using sed or awk

Hi All, I have a text file which looks like this: computer programming systems engineering I want to get rid of these square brackets and also the text that is inside these brackets. So that my final text file looks like this: computer programming systems engineering I am using... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: shoaibjameel123
3 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Replacing text between two square brackets

hi guys, i'm writing a script that looks for a unquie id in a file and replaces a string between two square brackets on the same line as the unquie id: ....... ....... 0001 zz 43242 replace this text] name 0002 sd 65466 UK] country ....... ....... how can i find line with id 0001... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: zaff
6 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Test command - Two square brackets

Hello, Can someone please explain to me the following line, ] && break I do not understand why two test square brackets are used. Thanks, Shantanu ---------- Post updated at 03:38 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:35 PM ---------- And, also why there's a $ before (echo $c |... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: Shan_u2005
5 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Double square brackets question

Hi, I just came across an interesting shell script syntax like the one below: ] && (trap 'rm -rf ${WORK_DIR}/*.$$; echo "\n\nInterrupted !!\n\n"; exit 4' 1 2 3 15) Can someone please explain the code snippet above? The trap command bit is fine but ] && is the hazy part. Generally we use an... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: King Nothing
2 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

WHy the double square brackets?

One of the senior administrators gave me a shell script to modify and it begins as follows: if ] && ] {more code follows} Why the double square brackets? (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: mojoman
10 Replies

10. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

square brackets

I would like to substitute a phrase which contains square brackets. change TO how? Thanks (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: gilead29
2 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question