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How to replace string between delimiters?

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# 1  
Old 06-24-2016
How to replace string between delimiters?
Hello,
I would need to replace a delimiter in a flat file using.I would like to replace the semicolon (";") but only if it was contained in a string between quotes. For example:

Original flat file example:
Code:
abc;abc;"abc;abc";cd;"ef;ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd;eee";ff

Desired output:
Code:
abc;abc;"abc|abc";cd;"ef|ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd|eee";ff

How could I do it using sed or awk?
Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 06-24-2016
Such things have been asked several times ago.
One of the frequently given answers was
Code:
awk 'NR%2==0 { gsub(";","|") } 1' RS='"' ORS='"' file

The trick is to set the Record Separator to ".
For clarification how the "lines" are seen do this
Code:
awk '1' RS='"' file

The rest is easy: on every second line replace all ; by |
# 3  
Old 06-24-2016
When I try MadeInGermany's code, I get an extraneous " at the end of the file and the resulting file is not a text file (since it is missing a trailing <newline> character after the extraneous ").

One possible alternative is:
Code:
awk '
BEGIN {	FS = OFS = ";"
}
{	for(i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {
		nq += gsub(/\"/, "&", $i)
		printf("%s%s", $i, (i == NF) ? "\n" : (nq % 2) ? "|" : OFS)
	}
}' file

which uses semicolons as the field separators and replaces field separators found inside double quotes with pipe symbols. If file contains:
Code:
abc;abc;"abc;abc";cd;"ef;ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd;eee";ff
a;"b";"c;d";"e;f;g"
a;"b";"c;d";"e;f;g";h

it produces the output:
Code:
abc;abc;"abc|abc";cd;"ef|ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd|eee";ff
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f|g"
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f|g";h

# 4  
Old 06-24-2016
Wouldn't just this do?
Code:
awk '{for (i=2; i < NF; i+=2) gsub (/\;/, "|", $i)} 1' FS=\" OFS=\" file
abc;abc;"abc|abc";cd;"ef|ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd|eee";ff
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f;g"
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f;g";h

This User Gave Thanks to RudiC For This Post:
Don Cragun
# 5  
Old 06-24-2016
In sed:
Code:
sed 's/\("[a-z]*\);\([a-z]*"\)/\1|\2/g' file

Last edited by greet_sed; 06-24-2016 at 06:37 PM.. Reason: updated code
# 6  
Old 06-24-2016
Code:
perl -pe 's/(;"\w+);/$1|/g' bartleby.file

Output:
Code:
abc;abc;"abc|abc";cd;"ef|ef";abc
aa;bb;"aa";cc;"ddd|eee";ff

# 7  
Old 06-24-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by greet_sed
In sed:
Code:
sed 's/\("[a-z]*\);\([a-z]*"\)/\1|\2/g' file

It works as long as there is no more than one semicolon between double quotes, but it doesn't work with input like:
Code:
a;"b";"c;d";"e;f;g"
a;"b";"c;d";"e;f;g";h

producing the output:
Code:
a;"b";"c|d";"e;f;g"
a;"b";"c|d";"e;f;g";h

instead of:
Code:
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f|g"
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f|g";h

and Aia's perl script produces:
Code:
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f;g"
a;"b";"c|d";"e|f;g";h

with the same input.
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