Remove lines containing a number less than/greater than a limit? - sed

I have a lot of lines like this, produced by grep -n:
path/to/dir/file1.txt:4: Match
path/to/dir/file1.txt:40: Another Match
path/to/dir/file2.txt:2: Match
path/to/dir/file2.txt:564: Yet another Match
I'd like to eliminate lines where the line number is less than (say) 10. I know I can get the line number easily with cut -d: -f2, but how could you then use this to discard the lines and continue piping the rest of the output in full so you end up with:
path/to/dir/file1.txt:40: Another Match
path/to/dir/file2.txt:564: Yet another Match

You can do:
your command | awk -F: '$2>=10'

Related

Changing a character in between patterns in vi/sed

I am struggling to work out how to get a , out from inbetween various patterns such as:
500,000
xyz ,CA
I have tried something like:
sed -E "s/\([a-zA-Z]*\),([a-zA-Z]*\)/\([a-zA-Z]*\) ([a-zA-Z]*\)/g" $file -i
It picks up the first pattern, but then over writes it with the second pattern, I feel like I am missing something very simple and I can't work it out, any help really appreciated.
You're missing the notion of capture groups, I think. To refer to a parenthesized portion of the search within the replacement string, use \1 for the first group, \2 for the second group, etc.
The modified line would be:
sed -E "s/([a-zA-Z]),([a-zA-Z])/\1 \2/g" $file -i
Rather than replacing the part that matches the first ([a-zA-Z]) with the literal text "([a-zA-Z])", this modified line just copies the matched portion into the output (and likewise for the second group).

Extract filename from multiple lines in unix

I'm trying to extract the name of the file name that has been generated by a Java program. This Java program spits out multiple lines and I know exactly what the format of the file name is going to be. The information text that the Java program is spitting out is as follows:
ABCASJASLEKJASDFALDSF
Generated file YANNANI-0008876_17.xml.
TDSFALSFJLSDJF;
I'm capturing the output in a variable and then applying a sed operator in the following format:
sed -n 's/.*\(YANNANI.\([[:digit:]]\).\([xml]\)*\)/\1/p'
The result set is:
YANNANI-0008876_17.xml.
However, my problem is that want the extraction of the filename to stop at .xml. The last dot should never be extracted.
Is there a way to do this using sed?
Let's look at what your capture group actually captures:
$ grep 'YANNANI.\([[:digit:]]\).\([xml]\)*' infile
Generated file YANNANI-0008876_17.xml.
That's probably not what you intended:
\([[:digit:]]\) captures just a single digit (and the capture group around it doesn't do anything)
\([xml]\)* is "any of x, m or l, 0 or more times", so it matches the empty string (as above – or the line wouldn't match at all!), x, xx, lll, mxxxxxmmmmlxlxmxlmxlm, xml, ...
There is no way the final period is removed because you don't match anything after the capture groups
What would make sense instead:
Match "digits or underscores, 0 or more": [[:digit:]_]*
Match .xml, literally (escape the period): \.xml
Make sure the rest of the line (just the period, in this case) is matched by adding .* after the capture group
So the regex for the string you'd like to extract becomes
$ grep 'YANNANI.[[:digit:]_]*\.xml' infile
Generated file YANNANI-0008876_17.xml.
and to remove everything else on the line using sed, we surround regex with .*\( ... \).*:
$ sed -n 's/.*\(YANNANI.[[:digit:]_]*\.xml\).*/\1/p' infile
YANNANI-0008876_17.xml
This assumes you really meant . after YANNANI (any character).
You can call sed twice: first in printing and then in replacement mode:
sed -n 's/.*\(YANNANI.\([[:digit:]]\).\([xml]\)*\)/\1/p' | sed 's/\.$//g'
the last sed will remove all the last . at the end of all the lines fetched by your first sed
or you can go for a awk solution as you prefer:
awk '/.*YANNANI.[0-9]+.[0-9]+.xml/{print substr($NF,1,length($NF)-1)}'
this will print the last field (and truncate the last char of it using substr) of all the lines that do match your regex.

How to use sed to isolate only the first part of a file

I'm running Windows and have the GnuWin32 toolkit, which includes sed. Specifically:
C:\TEMP>sed --version
GNU sed version 4.2.1
I have a text file with two sections: A fixed part I want to preserve, and a part that's appended after running a job.
In the file is a unique string that identifies the start of the part that's added, and I'd like to use Gnu sed to isolate only the part of the file that's before the unique string - i.e., so I can append different data to the fixed part each time the job is run.
I know I could keep the fixed portion in a separate file, but that adds complexity and it would be more elegant if I could just reuse the data at the start of the same file.
A long time ago I knew how to set up sed scripts, and I'm sure this can be done with sed, but I've slept since then. :)
Can you please describe how to use sed to display the lines of text in a file up to and not including a specific string?
Example:
line 1 of fixed portion
line 2 of fixed portion
unique string
line 1 of appended portion
line 2 of appended portion
line 3 of appended portion
What I'd like is to see as output:
line 1 of fixed portion
line 2 of fixed portion
I've gotten as far as:
sed -r -n -e "0,/unique string/p"
but that prints the unique string as well.
Thanks in advance.
-Noel
This should work for you:
sed -n '/unique string/q;p' file
It quits processing at unique string. Other lines get printed.
An alternative might be to use a range address like this:
sed -n '1,/unique string/{/unique string/!p}' file
Note that sed includes the range border. We need to exclude unique string from printing.
Furthermore I'm using the -n option which makes sed suppress the output of input lines by default.
One thing, if unique string can contain characters which are also syntax characters in the regex like ...
test*
... sed might not be the right tool for the job any more since it can only match regular expressions but not fixed strings.
In that case awk might be the tool of choice:
awk 'index("*unique string*"){exit}1' file
index("string") returns a non zero value (the position) if the string has been found. We cancel further processing of input lines in that case and don't print that line as well.
The trailing 1 always evaluates to true and makes awk print all the lines until the previous condition applies.

Wrong line numbers with multiline grep -P [ Perl extension ] match

I have been using grep with perl extension for multiline match .However it turns out that the line number of all the match depends on the number of lines in the first multiline match !
The grep regex to find the c function start :
grep -iPn '^[^\S\n]*?\w+\s+\w+?\s*\([\w-0-9,/* \s]*\)\s*\{$'
I can explain better with an example :
Suppose these two function exists in the source file
int f1(int a) {
int
f2 (int b )
{
In this case ,the grep matches the regex successfully and the line number output to stdout is in par with the line number of the source file .
The problem arises when a multiline function comes first .This alters the line number output and after examining the file for some time I came to a conclusion. The multiline functions are matched but read as a single line by the grep therefore it assigns the whole function a single line number.The next line that follows the function gets its line number short depending on the number of lines the 'function definition start regex 'occupies.
There are numerous multiline C functions in my file and the line number is way too deviated for each one of them.
Is there a way to correct this ?
Using the pcregrep for the same regex shows the correct line number !
pcregrep -Mni '^[^\S\n]*?\w+\s+\w+?\s*\([\w-0-9,/* \s]*\)\s*\{$'
Your solution doesn't work with my (linux, gnu)grep.
I need to add -z to make it work. With -z "lines" are separated by a null char; this way you have a single "line", so line numbers wont work :( but byte offset do. Sometimes that is enough...
So, using grep:
grep -ziPbo '^[^\S\n]*?\w+\s+\w+?\s*\([\w-0-9,/* \s]*\)\s*\{$'
obtaining
24:int
f2 (int b )
{

How to restrict a find and replace to only one column within a CSV?

I have a 4-column CSV file, e.g.:
0001 # fish # animal # eats worms
I use sed to do a find and replace on the file, but I need to limit this find and replace to only the text found inside column 3.
How can I have a find and replace only occur on this one column?
Are you sure you want to be using sed? What about csvfix? Is your CSV nice and simple with no quotes or embedded commas or other nasties that make regexes...a less than satisfactory way of dealing with a general CSV file? I'm assuming that the # is the 'comma' in your format.
Consider using awk instead of sed:
awk -F# '$3 ~ /pattern/ { OFS= "#"; $3 = "replace"; }'
Arguably, you should have a BEGIN block that sets OFS once. For one line of input, it didn't make any odds (and you'd probably be hard-pressed to measure a difference on a million lines of input, too):
$ echo "pattern # pattern # pattern # pattern" |
> awk -F# '$3 ~ /pattern/ { OFS= "#"; $3 = "replace"; }'
pattern # pattern #replace# pattern
$
If sed still seems appealing, then:
sed '/^\([^#]*#[^#]*\)#pattern#\(.*\)/ s//\1#replace#\2/'
For example (and note the slightly different input and output – you can fix it to handle the same as the awk quite easily if need be):
$ echo "pattern#pattern#pattern#pattern" |
> sed '/^\([^#]*#[^#]*\)#pattern#\(.*\)/ s//\1#replace#\2/'
pattern#pattern#replace#pattern
$
The first regex looks for the start of a line, a field of non-at-signs, an at-sign, another field of non-at-signs and remembers the lot; it looks for an at-sign, the pattern (which must be in the third field since the first two fields have been matched already), another at-sign, and then the residue of the line. When the line matches, then it replaces the line with the first two fields (unchanged, as required), then adds the replacement third field, and the residue of the line (unchanged, as required).
If you need to edit rather than simply replace the third field, then you think about using awk or Perl or Python. If you are still constrained to sed, then you explore using the hold space to hold part of the line while you manipulate the other part in the pattern space, and end up re-integrating your desired output line from the hold space and pattern space before printing the line. That's nearly as messy as it sounds; actually, possibly even messier than it sounds. I'd go with Perl (because I learned it long ago and it does this sort of thing quite easily), but you can use whichever non-sed tool you like.
Perl editing the third field. Note that the default output is $_ which had to be reassembled from the auto-split fields in the array #F.
$ echo "pattern#pattern#pattern#pattern" | sh -x xxx.pl
> perl -pa -F# -e '$F[2] =~ s/\s*pat(\w\w)rn\s*/ prefix-$1-suffix /; $_ = join "#", #F; ' "$#"
pattern#pattern# prefix-te-suffix #pattern
$
An explanation. The -p means 'loop, reading lines into $_ and printing $_ at the end of each iteration'. The -a means 'auto-split $_ into the array #F'. The -F# means the field separator is #. The -e is followed by the Perl program. Arrays are indexed from 0 in Perl, so the third field is split into $F[2] (the sigil — the # or $ — changes depending on whether you're working with a value from the array or the array as a whole. The =~ is a match operator; it applies the regex on the RHS to the value on the LHS. The substitute pattern recognizes zero or more spaces \s* followed by pat then two 'word' characters which are remembered into $1, then rn and zero or more spaces again; maybe there should be a ^ and $ in there to bind to the start and end of the field. The replacement is a space, 'prefix-', the remembered pair of letters, and '-suffix' and a space. The $_ = join "#", #F; reassembles the input line $_ from the possibly modified separate fields, and then the -p prints that out. Not quite as tidy as I'd like (so there's probably a better way to do it), but it works. And you can do arbitrary transforms on arbitrary fields in Perl without much difficulty. Perl also has a module Text::CSV (and a high-speed C version, Text::CSV_XS) which can handle really complex CSV files.
Essentially break the line into three pieces, with the pattern you're looking for in the middle. Then keep the outer pieces and replace the middle.
/\([^#]*#[^#]*#\[^#]*\)pattern\([^#]*#.*\)/s//\1replacement\2/
\([^#]*#[^#]*#\[^#]*\) - gather everything before the pattern, including the 3rd # and any text before the math - this becomes \1
pattern - the thing you're looking for
\([^#]*#.*\) - gather everything after the pattern - this becomes \2
Then change that line into \1 then the replacement, then everything after pattern, which is \2
This might work for you:
echo 0001 # fish # animal # eats worms|
sed 's/#/&\n/2;s/#/\n&/3;h;s/\n#.*//;s/.*\n//;y/a/b/;G;s/\([^\n]*\)\n\([^\n]*\).*\n/\2\1/'
0001 # fish # bnimbl # eats worms
Explanation:
Define the field to be worked on (in this case the 3rd) and insert a newline (\n) before it and directly after it. s/#/&\n/2;s/#/\n&/3
Save the line in the hold space. h
Delete the fields either side s/\n#.*//;s/.*\n//
Now process the field i.e. change all a's to b's. y/a/b/
Now append the original line. G
Substitute the new field for the old field (also removing any newlines). s/\([^\n]*\)\n\([^\n]*\).*\n/\2\1/
N.B. That in step 4 the pattern space only contains the defined field, so any number of commands may be carried out here and the result will not affect the rest of the line.