Sed question (Removing a line of text)


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Sed question (Removing a line of text)
# 1  
Old 12-16-2008
Question Sed question (Removing a line of text)

I am working with bash on HP-UX server at school.
As practice for scripting, I am trying to make a pretend server admin script that adds a user to the system, deletes a user from the system, and lists all users of the pretend system. I have accomplished this with a select loop. Adding users, and listing users I have figured out, but my problem is deleting users from the passwd file.

I am trying to use sed to display the passwd file without the line containing the unique user id then redirect to a temporary file. Then I take the temporary file and rename it as the passwd file, effectively removing the user from the passwd file. The problem I am running into is the proper way to get sed to show all lines except for the one I want to remove, could anyone help me?
# 2  
Old 12-16-2008
Code:
user=scout
sed "/^$user:/d" /etc/passwd > tempfile

# 3  
Old 12-16-2008
Thanks I'll try that right now!
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

How to prevent sed command removing whole line?

hello, I'm using sed command to extract the text between 2 special characters which are /* and */ I used following command to do this. sed -n '/\/\*/,/\*\//p' file.txt But if the file.txt contains a line something like this, a=5; /* this is a comment */ the above command... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: beginner_99
3 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

awk :quick question removing empty line.

How to write in awk to remove lines starting with "#" and then process the file: This is not working: cat file|awk '{if ($0 ~ /^#/) $0="";print NF>0}' When I just give cat file|awk '{if ($0 ~ /^#/) $0="";print }' it prints the blank lines . I don't wnat the blank lines along with the... (15 Replies)
Discussion started by: rveri
15 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Help with removing line from text

Hey everyone, I kinda new to shell programming and learning bits and pieces of stuff from tutorials. I got this problem, where I asked my user to enter a string, which will delete a specific line in the string, which I'm unable to do it. Text file(BookDB.txt) as shown: Three Little... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: aLHaNz
4 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed removing until end of line

All: Can somebody help me out with a sed command, which removes the the first occurance of ')' until the end of the line If I have the following input ... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: BeefStu
5 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Removing end of line using SED

Hello Friends, How can I remove the last two values of this line using sed John Carey:507-699-5368:29 Albert way, Edmonton, AL 25638:9/3/90:45900 The result should look like this: John Carey:507-699-5368:29 Albert way, Edmonton, AL 25638 (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: humkhn
3 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

removing a line containing a pattern in sed

i need to use sed to remove an entire line containing a pattern stored in a variable say $var1 this var1 will be a URL and will therefore contain slashes any help would be greatly appreciated (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Fire_Storm
1 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Removing text from a line in a file

Hi All, I would like to know how to remove text from a line in a file. eg to The 4 sets of numbers are not static ie they change on each line in each different file so if anyone can help that would be great. Jeremy (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: outthere_3
10 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Removing a particular line from a text file

Hi, I have a file called inp.txt the contents of the file are as follows MANI123|23|41 MANI123|96|23 I want to reove the first line of this file. How can I do it. Thanks in advance (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: sendhilmani123
5 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

removing parts of a line with SED

hi, i'm trying to erase all the characters after, and including, the first test test Output: test1 test2 test3 this is what I tried, but didn't work sed "s/*//" file > testfilename any suggestions? thanks, gammmaman (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: gammaman
2 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

perl question - removing line from input file

In perl I want to do remove the top line of my input file then process the next line. I want to do something like head -1 inputfile > temp grep -v temp inputfile > newinputfile cp newinputfile inputfle is this possible in perl? (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: reggiej
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question