In my bash script I have an external (received from user) string, which I should use in sed pattern.
REPLACE="<funny characters here>"
sed "s/KEYWORD/$REPLACE/g"
How can I escape the $REPLACE string so it would be safely accepted by sed as a literal replacement?
NOTE: The KEYWORD is a dumb substring with no matches etc. It is not supplied by user.
Warning: This does not consider newlines. For a more in-depth answer, see this SO-question instead. (Thanks, Ed Morton & Niklas Peter)
Note that escaping everything is a bad idea. Sed needs many characters to be escaped to get their special meaning. For example, if you escape a digit in the replacement string, it will turn in to a backreference.
As Ben Blank said, there are only three characters that need to be escaped in the replacement string (escapes themselves, forward slash for end of statement and & for replace all):
ESCAPED_REPLACE=$(printf '%s\n' "$REPLACE" | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g')
# Now you can use ESCAPED_REPLACE in the original sed statement
sed "s/KEYWORD/$ESCAPED_REPLACE/g"
If you ever need to escape the KEYWORD string, the following is the one you need:
sed -e 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g'
And can be used by:
KEYWORD="The Keyword You Need";
ESCAPED_KEYWORD=$(printf '%s\n' "$KEYWORD" | sed -e 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g');
# Now you can use it inside the original sed statement to replace text
sed "s/$ESCAPED_KEYWORD/$ESCAPED_REPLACE/g"
Remember, if you use a character other than / as delimiter, you need replace the slash in the expressions above wih the character you are using. See PeterJCLaw's comment for explanation.
Edited: Due to some corner cases previously not accounted for, the commands above have changed several times. Check the edit history for details.
The sed command allows you to use other characters instead of / as separator:
sed 's#"http://www\.fubar\.com"#URL_FUBAR#g'
The double quotes are not a problem.
The only three literal characters which are treated specially in the replace clause are / (to close the clause), \ (to escape characters, backreference, &c.), and & (to include the match in the replacement). Therefore, all you need to do is escape those three characters:
sed "s/KEYWORD/$(echo $REPLACE | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g; s/\//\\\//g; s/&/\\\&/g')/g"
Example:
$ export REPLACE="'\"|\\/><&!"
$ echo fooKEYWORDbar | sed "s/KEYWORD/$(echo $REPLACE | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g; s/\//\\\//g; s/&/\\\&/g')/g"
foo'"|\/><&!bar
Based on Pianosaurus's regular expressions, I made a bash function that escapes both keyword and replacement.
function sedeasy {
sed -i "s/$(echo $1 | sed -e 's/\([[\/.*]\|\]\)/\\&/g')/$(echo $2 | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g')/g" $3
}
Here's how you use it:
sedeasy "include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*" "include /apps/*/conf/nginx.conf" /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
It's a bit late to respond... but there IS a much simpler way to do this. Just change the delimiter (i.e., the character that separates fields). So, instead of s/foo/bar/ you write s|bar|foo.
And, here's the easy way to do this:
sed 's|/\*!50017 DEFINER=`snafu`#`localhost`\*/||g'
The resulting output is devoid of that nasty DEFINER clause.
It turns out you're asking the wrong question. I also asked the wrong question. The reason it's wrong is the beginning of the first sentence: "In my bash script...".
I had the same question & made the same mistake. If you're using bash, you don't need to use sed to do string replacements (and it's much cleaner to use the replace feature built into bash).
Instead of something like, for example:
function escape-all-funny-characters() { UNKNOWN_CODE_THAT_ANSWERS_THE_QUESTION_YOU_ASKED; }
INPUT='some long string with KEYWORD that need replacing KEYWORD.'
A="$(escape-all-funny-characters 'KEYWORD')"
B="$(escape-all-funny-characters '<funny characters here>')"
OUTPUT="$(sed "s/$A/$B/g" <<<"$INPUT")"
you can use bash features exclusively:
INPUT='some long string with KEYWORD that need replacing KEYWORD.'
A='KEYWORD'
B='<funny characters here>'
OUTPUT="${INPUT//"$A"/"$B"}"
Use awk - it is cleaner:
$ awk -v R='//addr:\\file' '{ sub("THIS", R, $0); print $0 }' <<< "http://file:\_THIS_/path/to/a/file\\is\\\a\\ nightmare"
http://file:\_//addr:\file_/path/to/a/file\\is\\\a\\ nightmare
Here is an example of an AWK I used a while ago. It is an AWK that prints new AWKS. AWK and SED being similar it may be a good template.
ls | awk '{ print "awk " "'"'"'" " {print $1,$2,$3} " "'"'"'" " " $1 ".old_ext > " $1 ".new_ext" }' > for_the_birds
It looks excessive, but somehow that combination of quotes works to keep the ' printed as literals. Then if I remember correctly the vaiables are just surrounded with quotes like this: "$1". Try it, let me know how it works with SED.
These are the escape codes that I've found:
* = \x2a
( = \x28
) = \x29
" = \x22
/ = \x2f
\ = \x5c
' = \x27
? = \x3f
% = \x25
^ = \x5e
sed is typically a mess, especially the difference between gnu-sed and bsd-sed
might just be easier to place some sort of sentinel at the sed side, then a quick pipe over to awk, which is far more flexible in accepting any ERE regex, escaped hex, or escaped octals.
e.g. OFS in awk is the true replacement ::
date | sed -E 's/[0-9]+/\xC1\xC0/g' |
mawk NF=NF FS='\xC1\xC0' OFS='\360\237\244\241'
1 Tue Aug 🤡 🤡:🤡:🤡 EDT 🤡
(tested and confirmed working on both BSD-sed and GNU-sed - the emoji isn't a typo that's what those 4 bytes map to in UTF-8 )
There are dozens of answers out there... If you don't mind using a bash function schema, below is a good answer. The objective below was to allow using sed with practically any parameter as a KEYWORD (F_PS_TARGET) or as a REPLACE (F_PS_REPLACE). We tested it in many scenarios and it seems to be pretty safe. The implementation below supports tabs, line breaks and sigle quotes for both KEYWORD and replace REPLACE.
NOTES: The idea here is to use sed to escape entries for another sed command.
CODE
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=""
f_reverse_string() {
: 'Do a string reverse.
To undo just use a reversed string as STRING_INPUT.
Args:
STRING_INPUT (str): String input.
Returns:
F_REVERSE_STRING_R (str): The modified string.
'
local STRING_INPUT=$1
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=$(echo "x${STRING_INPUT}x" | tac | rev)
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=${F_REVERSE_STRING_R%?}
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=${F_REVERSE_STRING_R#?}
}
# [Ref(s).: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2705678/3223785 ]
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=""
f_power_sed_ecp() {
: 'Escape strings for the "sed" command.
Escaped characters will be processed as is (e.g. /n, /t ...).
Args:
F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP (str): Value to be escaped.
F_PSE_ECP_TYPE (int): 0 - For the TARGET value; 1 - For the REPLACE value.
Returns:
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R (str): Escaped value.
'
local F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP=$1
local F_PSE_ECP_TYPE=$2
# NOTE: Operational characters of "sed" will be escaped, as well as single quotes.
# By Questor
if [ ${F_PSE_ECP_TYPE} -eq 0 ] ; then
# NOTE: For the TARGET value. By Questor
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=$(echo "x${F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP}x" | sed 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g' | sed "s/'/\\\x27/g" | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\n/g')
else
# NOTE: For the REPLACE value. By Questor
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=$(echo "x${F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP}x" | sed 's/[\/&]/\\&/g' | sed "s/'/\\\x27/g" | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\n/g')
fi
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=${F_POWER_SED_ECP_R%?}
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=${F_POWER_SED_ECP_R#?}
}
# [Ref(s).: https://stackoverflow.com/a/24134488/3223785 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/21740695/3223785 ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/655558/61742 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/11461628/3223785 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/45151986/3223785 ,
# https://linuxaria.com/pills/tac-and-rev-to-see-files-in-reverse-order ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/631355/61742 ]
F_POWER_SED_R=""
f_power_sed() {
: 'Facilitate the use of the "sed" command. Replaces in files and strings.
Args:
F_PS_TARGET (str): Value to be replaced by the value of F_PS_REPLACE.
F_PS_REPLACE (str): Value that will replace F_PS_TARGET.
F_PS_FILE (Optional[str]): File in which the replacement will be made.
F_PS_SOURCE (Optional[str]): String to be manipulated in case "F_PS_FILE" was
not informed.
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR (Optional[int]): [1~n] - Replace the nth match; [n~-1] - Replace
the last nth match; 0 - Replace every match; Default 1.
Returns:
F_POWER_SED_R (str): Return the result if "F_PS_FILE" is not informed.
'
local F_PS_TARGET=$1
local F_PS_REPLACE=$2
local F_PS_FILE=$3
local F_PS_SOURCE=$4
local F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=$5
if [ -z "$F_PS_NTH_OCCUR" ] ; then
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=1
fi
local F_PS_REVERSE_MODE=0
if [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -lt -1 ] ; then
F_PS_REVERSE_MODE=1
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_TARGET"
F_PS_TARGET="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_REPLACE"
F_PS_REPLACE="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_SOURCE"
F_PS_SOURCE="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=$((-F_PS_NTH_OCCUR))
fi
f_power_sed_ecp "$F_PS_TARGET" 0
F_PS_TARGET=$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R
f_power_sed_ecp "$F_PS_REPLACE" 1
F_PS_REPLACE=$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R
local F_PS_SED_RPL=""
if [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -eq -1 ] ; then
# NOTE: We kept this option because it performs better when we only need to replace
# the last occurrence. By Questor
# [Ref(s).: https://linuxhint.com/use-sed-replace-last-occurrence/ ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/713866/61742 ]
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/\(.*\)$F_PS_TARGET/\1$F_PS_REPLACE/'"
elif [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -gt 0 ] ; then
# [Ref(s).: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/587924/61742 ]
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/$F_PS_TARGET/$F_PS_REPLACE/$F_PS_NTH_OCCUR'"
elif [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -eq 0 ] ; then
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/$F_PS_TARGET/$F_PS_REPLACE/g'"
fi
# NOTE: As the "sed" commands below always process literal values for the "F_PS_TARGET"
# so we use the "-z" flag in case it has multiple lines. By Quaestor
# [Ref(s).: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/525524/61742 ]
if [ -z "$F_PS_FILE" ] ; then
F_POWER_SED_R=$(echo "x${F_PS_SOURCE}x" | eval "sed -z $F_PS_SED_RPL")
F_POWER_SED_R=${F_POWER_SED_R%?}
F_POWER_SED_R=${F_POWER_SED_R#?}
if [ ${F_PS_REVERSE_MODE} -eq 1 ] ; then
f_reverse_string "$F_POWER_SED_R"
F_POWER_SED_R="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
fi
else
if [ ${F_PS_REVERSE_MODE} -eq 0 ] ; then
eval "sed -i -z $F_PS_SED_RPL \"$F_PS_FILE\""
else
tac "$F_PS_FILE" | rev | eval "sed -z $F_PS_SED_RPL" | tac | rev > "$F_PS_FILE"
fi
fi
}
MODEL
f_power_sed "F_PS_TARGET" "F_PS_REPLACE" "" "F_PS_SOURCE"
echo "$F_POWER_SED_R"
EXAMPLE
f_power_sed "{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate" "[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"" "" "Great answer (+1). If you change your awk to awk '{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate that concatenation of the final \", \" then you don't have to go through the gymnastics on eliminating the final record. So: readarray -td '' a < <(awk '{ gsub(/,[ ]+/,\"\0\"); print; }' <<<\"$string\") on Bash that supports readarray. Note your method is Bash 4.4+ I think because of the -d in readar"
echo "$F_POWER_SED_R"
IF YOU JUST WANT TO ESCAPE THE PARAMETERS TO THE SED COMMAND
MODEL
# "TARGET" value.
f_power_sed_ecp "F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP" 0
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
# "REPLACE" value.
f_power_sed_ecp "F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP" 1
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
IMPORTANT: If the strings for KEYWORD and/or replace REPLACE contain tabs or line breaks you will need to use the "-z" flag in your "sed" command. More details here.
EXAMPLE
f_power_sed_ecp "{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate" 0
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
f_power_sed_ecp "[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"" 1
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
NOTE: The f_power_sed_ecp and f_power_sed functions above was made available completely free as part of this project ez_i - Create shell script installers easily!.
Standard recommendation here: use perl :)
echo KEYWORD > /tmp/test
REPLACE="<funny characters here>"
perl -pi.bck -e "s/KEYWORD/${REPLACE}/g" /tmp/test
cat /tmp/test
don't forget all the pleasure that occur with the shell limitation around " and '
so (in ksh)
Var=">New version of \"content' here <"
printf "%s" "${Var}" | sed "s/[&\/\\\\*\\"']/\\&/g' | read -r EscVar
echo "Here is your \"text\" to change" | sed "s/text/${EscVar}/g"
If the case happens to be that you are generating a random password to pass to sed replace pattern, then you choose to be careful about which set of characters in the random string. If you choose a password made by encoding a value as base64, then there is is only character that is both possible in base64 and is also a special character in sed replace pattern. That character is "/", and is easily removed from the password you are generating:
# password 32 characters log, minus any copies of the "/" character.
pass=`openssl rand -base64 32 | sed -e 's/\///g'`;
If you are just looking to replace Variable value in sed command then just remove
Example:
sed -i 's/dev-/dev-$ENV/g' test to sed -i s/dev-/dev-$ENV/g test
I have an improvement over the sedeasy function, which WILL break with special characters like tab.
function sedeasy_improved {
sed -i "s/$(
echo "$1" | sed -e 's/\([[\/.*]\|\]\)/\\&/g'
| sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g'
)/$(
echo "$2" | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g'
| sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g'
)/g" "$3"
}
So, whats different? $1 and $2 wrapped in quotes to avoid shell expansions and preserve tabs or double spaces.
Additional piping | sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g' (I like : as token) which transforms a tab in \t.
An easier way to do this is simply building the string before hand and using it as a parameter for sed
rpstring="s/KEYWORD/$REPLACE/g"
sed -i $rpstring test.txt
I strongly doubt about the grep best use in my code and would like to find a better and cleaner coding style for extracting the session ID and security level from my cookie file :
cat mycookie
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# https://curl.haxx.se/docs/http-cookies.html
# This file was generated by libcurl! Edit at your own risk.
#HttpOnly_127.0.0.1 FALSE / FALSE 0 PHPSESSID 1hjs18icittvqvpa4tm2lv9b12
#HttpOnly_127.0.0.1 FALSE /mydir/ FALSE 0 security medium
The expected output is the SSID hash :
1hjs18icittvqvpa4tm2lv9b12
Piping grep with tr '\n' '\0' works like a charm in the command line, but generates warnings (warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input”) at the bash code execution. Here is the related code (with warnings):
ssid=$(grep -Po 'PHPSESSID.*' path/sessionFile | grep -Po '[a-z]|[0-9]' | tr '\n' '\0')
I am using bash 4.4.12 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) and could read here this crystal clear explanation :
Bash variables are stored as C strings. C strings are NUL-terminated.
They thus cannot store NULs by definition.
I could see here and there in both cases a coding solution using read:
# read content from stdin into array variable and a scalar variable "suffix"
array=( )
while IFS= read -r -d '' line; do
array+=( "$line" )
done < <(process that generates NUL stream here)
suffix=$line # content after last NUL, if any
# emit recorded content
printf '%s\0' "${array[#]}"; printf '%s' "$suffix"
I don't want to use arrays nor a while loop for this specific case, or others. I found this workaround using sed:
ssid=$(grep -Po 'PHPSESSID.*' path/sessionFile | grep -Po '[a-z]|[0-9]' | tr '\n' '_' | sed -e 's/_//g')
My two questions are :
1) Would it be a better way to substitute tr '\n' '\0', without using read into a while loop ?
2) Would it be a better way to extract properly the SSID and security level ?
Thx
It looks like you're trying to get rid of the newlines in the output from grep, but turning them into nulls doesn't do this. Nulls aren't visible in your terminal, but are still there and (like many other nonprinting characters) will wreak havoc if they get treated as part of your actual data. If you want to get rid of the newlines, just tell tr to delete them for you with ... | tr -d '\n'. But if you're trying to get the PHPSESSID value from a Netscape-format cookie file, there's a much much better way:
ssid=$(awk '($6 == "PHPSESSID") {print $7}' path/sessionFile)
This looks for "PHPSESSID" only in the sixth field (not in e.g. the path or cookie values -- both places it could legally appear), and specifically prints the seventh field of matching lines (not just anything after "PHPSESSID" that happens to be a digit or lowercase letter).
You could also try this, if you don't want to use awk:
ssid=$(grep -P '\bPHPSESSID\b' you_cookies_file)
echo $ssid # for debug only
which outputs something like
#HttpOnly_127.0.0.1 FALSE / FALSE 0 PHPSESSID 1hjs18icittvqvpa4tm2lv9b12
Then with cut(1) extract the relevant field:
echo $ssid |cut -d" " -f7
which outputs
1hjs18icittvqvpa4tm2lv9b12
Of course you should capture the last echo.
UPDATE
If you don't want to use cut, it is possible to emulate it with:
echo $ssid | (read a1 b2 c3 d4 e5 f6 g7; echo $g7)
Demonstration to capture in a variable:
$ field=$(echo $ssid | (read a1 b2 c3 d4 e5 f6 g7; echo $g7))
$ echo $field
1hjs18icittvqvpa4tm2lv9b12
$
Another way is to use positional parameters passing the string to a function which then refers to $7. Perhaps cleaner. Otherwise, you can use an array:
array=($(echo $ssid))
echo ${array[6]} # outputs the 7th field
It should also be possible to use regular expressions and/or string manipulation is bash, but they seem a little more difficult to me.
I have small task.
I should write:
data="duke,rock,hulk,donovan,john"
And in the next variable, i should change delimiter of first variable.
data2="duke|rock|hulk|donovan|john"
What is the correct way to do this on bash ?
This is a small part of script, what i should do.
For example, i use construction "WHILE-GETOPS-CASE" to use usernames in parameter for excluding them.
ls /home/ | egrep -v $data2
You can easily replace a single character with an expansion:
data="duke,rock,hulk,donovan,john"
data2=${data//,/|}
echo "$data2"
Breaking down the syntax:
${data means "expand based on the value found in variable data;
// means "search all occurences of";
The lone / means "replace with what follows".
Note that some characters may need to be escaped, but not the comma and vertical bar.
Then you may filter the results like this:
ls /home/ | egrep -v "$data2"
Another very similar way would be to use tr (translate or delete characters):
data="duke,rock,hulk,donovan,john"
data2=$(echo $data | tr ',' '|')
echo "$data2"
shell script to print three words differently I have tried
{
a="Uname/pass#last"
echo $a | tr "/" "\n" | tr "#" "\n"
output is:
Uname
pass
last
}
I want it as
{Username- Uname
Password- pass
lastname-last}
Ok, I guess you want to add a prefix to each results:
printf 'Username\nPassword\nlastname' > /tmp/prefixes
a="Uname/pass#last"
echo "${a}" | tr '/#' '\n\n' | paste -d':' /tmp/prefixes -
ie: paste together the output of /tmp/prefixes and of the Standard Input (-), which is receiving the output of : echo ".../...#..." | tr '/#' '\n\n'
(and in the resulting output, separate the 2 with a : in this example, or whatever else you would want. Ex: - like in your question.)
and it outputs :
Username:user
Password:pass
lastname:last
(I know you wanted a - instead of a : but I give my example with : to better separate the "-" denoting the standard input, and the ":" denoting the field-separator character in the output. Just change -d':' into -d'-' to have a - instead.)
First off, I hope you're not going to manipulate important passwords in a shell script and external commands. There are some risks involved with that.
Defining the problem
I suspect you want split a string encoding a user's Username, password and surname into a three line structure, adding tags to document which is which. For that, tr is insufficient.
However, it can be done inside the shell.
Example (bash, ksh):
function split_account_string {
typeset account=${1:?account string} uname pass last t
uname=${account%%/*}
last=${account##*#}
t=${account#$uname/}
pass=${t%#*}
[[ $uname/$pass#$last == "$account" ]] || return
echo "{Username-$uname"
echo "Password-$pass"
echo "lastname-$last}"
}
split_account_string "USER_A/seKreT#John.Doe"
This function will extract all tokens between the first / and the last # as the value of the password. If either one is missing, it will print nothing, and return an error status.
When run, this gives:
{Username-USER_A
Password-seKreT
lastname-John.Doe}
Use this simple script and get the output.
#!/bin/bash
a="Uname/pass#last"
array2=(`echo $a | tr "/" "\n" | tr "#" "\n"`)
array1=(`echo -e "Username\nPassword\nlastname"`)
i=${#array1[#]}
for (( j=0 ; j<$i ; j++ ))
do
echo "${array1[$j]}=${array2[$j]}"
done
Greetings!
I have a text file with parameter set as follows:
NameOfParameter Value1 Value2 Value3 ...
...
I want to find needed parameter by its NameOfParameter using regexp pattern and return a selected Value to my Bash script.
I tried to do this with grep, but it returns a whole line instead of Value.
Could you help me to find as approach please?
It was not clear if you want all the values together or only one specific one. In either case, use the power of cut command to cut the columns you want from a file (-f 2- will cut columns 2 and on (so everything except parameter name; -d " " will ensure that the columns are considered to be space-separated as opposed to default tab-separated)
egrep '^NameOfParameter ' your_file | cut -f 2- -d " "
Bash:
values=($(grep '^NameofParameter '))
echo ${values[0]} # NameofParameter
echo ${values[1]} # Value1
echo ${values[2]} # Value2
# etc.
for value in ${values[#:1]} # iterate over values, skipping NameofParameter
do
echo "$value"
done