Text file editing, with 'sed'

[cgswong]

Hi all,

I have a text file which is just a journal to be filled in by the operator after a backup, when it's printed. I want to write a script which will either insert a '*', or the host name (using environemnt variable HOST) in a certain row/column; or edit the journal file replacing "( ) Home" with "(*) Home", or "Server: "with "Server: $HOST" where $HOST is an environemnt variable. I have been trying to use 'sed', but without much success.

I don't have much (very little really ) experience with sed. The following is the command I use and the error message I keep getting:

# sed -e '15,s/( ) Home/(*) Home' /tmp/bkuplog.msg.bak
sed: command garbled: 15,s/( ) Home/(*) Home
#

Does anyone have any ideas or perhaps a script already written which can help me. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

- Stuart

 

[Lim]

Try this:
sed -e 's/()Home/(*)Home/' -e "s/SERVER:/SERVER:$HOST/" file

Pay attention to ' and ". This makes a big difference.

 

[chgwhat]

Try this:

sed -e "15,s/()Home/(\*)Home;15,s/SERVER:/SERVER:$HOST/" file

all special char must be escaped with a $HOST will be replace with variable if in "



Tony ... aka chgwhat
tony_b@technologist.com

When in doubt,,, Power out...

 

[cgswong]

I've tried both these ideas and I still get the error message "command garbled". I even simplified it to many various variations of both, and still the same message. Any other ideas? This thing is now officially frustrating.

Regards.

- Stuart

 

[cgswong]

Ok, hold the phone! It does work guys ! I left out the last bracket, so it's

sed -e '9,s/( ) Home/(*) Home/' file

The '*' doesn't have to be delimited and spaces are allowed. Thanks again guys, I'm a happy man!

- Stuart

 

[Lim]

Sure, but
sed -e 's/SERVER:/SERVER:$HOST/' file
will not work
Actually it will of cause but you will have
"SERVER: $HOST" instead of "SERVER: My_host"
If HOST="My_host"

 

[cgswong]

This is true, does anyone know how to get it working properly? Also, how do you insert/append using 'sed'? I've tried using a\ and i\ but get either 'command garbled' or no change to the file depending on my syntax (too embarassing to show). Please help!

- Stuart

 

[jad]

does :
sed -e "15,s/()Home/(\*)Home;15,s/SERVER:/SERVER:"$HOST"/" file

work?

 

[cgswong]

Sorry to get back so late, we've been having trouble with our internet service. I don't now about what you've got jad, but I got mine to work after some fiddling. You need to have the sed commands in double quotes to get the variable/OS command to work. The following works:

sed -e "15,15s/( ) Home/(*) Home/;22,22s/SERVER:/SERVER: `echo $HOST`/"

The 'echo' was left out previously as well. If I use single quotes (') it does work, so sed must have double to work (&quot.

I do however want to know how to insert/append. I've tried a\ (append) and i\ (insert) from the man page but this doesn't work. It may need to be in a command file. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks for all the help.

- Stuart