replacing strings with newlines : sed


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting replacing strings with newlines : sed
# 1  
Old 11-28-2008
replacing strings with newlines : sed

Hi everyone,

Since the previous time I received help from unix.com I have been encouraged to learn more.

going through 1 of the articles(View Article) on sed I found, it pointed an interesting situation.
Suppose the text is :

Romeo and Ethel the Dancer Moves Audience to Tears.
I was treated to the off Broadway opening of Romeo and Ethel the
Dancer. This moving story of star-crossed lovers had the
audience in tears half way through the third act.
Do not go to see this play without a hanky, but even the weeping
from the back row could not diminish the brilliance of Romeo and
Ethel the Dancer by William Shakespeare.


Now I want to replace "Romeo and Ethel the Dancer" by "Romeo and Juliet".
The lines are separated by newlines.

The article demontrates doing this by using addresses. I was trying to think of another way round by building a reg-ex and use simple sed.
I believe I need a way to represent a newline in the sed search expression.

Please help by hinting towards the solution and not directly.

Thank You.

Regards

Last edited by hkansal; 11-28-2008 at 01:27 PM.. Reason: Added link back to original article
# 2  
Old 11-28-2008
Hammer & Screwdriver

One approach might be to replace all new-line characters with a different character. Perhaps

tr "\n" "~" would turn the text into one long string
# 3  
Old 11-28-2008
Or have a look into sed's abilities for multiline pattern (N).
# 4  
Old 11-28-2008
Thanks for the options, I ll try these out and get back to you.Smilie

Regards
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Selectively deleting newlines with sed

I have a file that look like this: >Muestra-1 agctgcgagctgcgaccc gggttatata ggaagagacacacacaccccc >Muestra-2 agctgcg agctgcgacccgggttatataggaagagac acacacaccccc >Muestra-3 agctgcgagctgcgaccc gggttatata ggaagagacacacacaccccc I use the following sed script to remove newlines from... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: Xterra
2 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed a multiple line pattern that has newlines followed by text and r

Here is the text that I was to run sed on. In this text I want to insert a semi colon ';' before 'select a13.STORE_TYPE STORE_TYPE,' and after 'from ZZMR00 pa11' Input text: insert into ZZMQ01 select pa11.STATE_NBR STATE_NBR, pa11.STORE_TYPE STORE_TYPE, ... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: v_vineeta11
9 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Replacing strings

Hello All, I have two files with delimited | file 1 : 1|2|3 11|12|13 22|23|24 and file 2 : 1|4|5|6 11|14|15|16 22|25|26 I want to replace the value '1' in file 2 with the values in file 1 '1|2|3' so the final output will look like 1|2|3|4|5|6 11|12|13|14|15|16 22|23|24|25|26 (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: ArunKumarM
3 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed replacing required newlines

hi i have a requirement to replace a string with another using sed and to get the result newline separated but after sed replacement the newline vanishes below is sample code #!/bin/ksh set -x string="name sam\nage 45 \nsport soccer" echo $string string=`echo $string | sed... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: midhun19
2 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed remove newlines and spaces

Hi all, i am getting count from oracle 11g by spooling it to a file. Now there are some newline characters and blank spaces i need to remove these. pl provide me a awk/sed solution. the spooled file is attached. i tried this.. but not getting req o/p (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: rishav
6 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Replacing strings

The code below gives the string "test1.txt" even though "tessdsdt" does not match "test1.txt". I would like to return "" if there is no match and return some kind of error that I can capture and decide what to do. echo test1.txt | awk -v src="tessdsdt" -v dst="test" '{sub(src,dst); print}' (16 Replies)
Discussion started by: kristinu
16 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

best method of replacing multiple strings in multiple files - sed or awk? most simple preferred :)

Hi guys, say I have a few files in a directory (58 text files or somthing) each one contains mulitple strings that I wish to replace with other strings so in these 58 files I'm looking for say the following strings: JAM (replace with BUTTER) BREAD (replace with CRACKER) SCOOP (replace... (19 Replies)
Discussion started by: rich@ardz
19 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

adding symbol to newlines with out replacing them

Guyz I have been using tr command to replace symbol. I would like to add a symbol to all newlines in a textfile with out replacing them input \n (i mean new line) a \n b \n c output > a > b > c (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: repinementer
0 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

sed problem replacing long strings

Hi all, I have a script which uses sed to replace one string with another. The problem is, the string to be matched, and its replacement are coming in as two command line arguments $1 and $2 $1 and $2 can be absolutely anything, but both should be treated purely as strings. My sed command... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: mark007
1 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

replacing comma's with newlines using sed

Hi All, silly question that I'm sure is easy to answer for a more experienced coder... I have a file called test.txt containing the following text... need, to, break, this, line, into, individual, lines using sed, I'd like to make the file look like this... need to break this line... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: newbie_coder
5 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question