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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 have this shell line to concatenate 2 string:
new_group="second result is: ${result},\"${policyActivite}_${policyApplication}\""
echo "result is: ${new_group}"
The result:
result is: "Team","Application_Team"
How can change the result to: result is: "Team, Application_Team"
Use sed:
echo "$new_group" | sed 's/"//g;s/^\(.*\)$/"\1"/'
The first statement is removing all double quotes. The second one add double at the start and the end of the line.
Alternatively, if you want to replace "," with ,, use this sed command: sed 's/","/, /g'
I have strings which contain double quotes like this one:
"[{"clientid":"*", "identityzone":"*"}]"
I would like to use set or grep to delete the double quotes at the beginning and at the end of it, the output should look like :
[{"clientid":"*", "identityzone":"*"}]
I have used : sed -e 's/\"//g' but this deletes all the " in a string
You need to use line anchors
$ echo '"[{"clientid":"*", "identityzone":"*"}]"' | sed 's/^"//; s/"$//'
[{"clientid":"*", "identityzone":"*"}]
^" match " only at start of line
"$ match " only at end of line
You can also combine them using | as sed 's/^"\|"$//g'
See Overview of basic regular expression syntax
easy:
sed 's/^\"\(.*\)\"$/\1/g' <<<'"[{"clientid":"*", "identityzone":"*"}]"'
Consider test file csf.conf:
CC_DENY = ""
Running the command:
sed -i -E 's/(CC_DENY *= *")[^"]+/\1AR,BE,CL,CN,CO,CS,ES,FR,GR,HK,IT,KO,PA,PE,PH,PL,RS,RU,SG,SK,TH,UA,VN,AE,AF,AL,AS,AZ,BA,BD,BF,BH,BJ,BN,CI,DJ,EG,EH,ER,ET,GM,GN,GW,IQ,IR,IS,JO,KG,KM,KW,KZ,LB,LY,MC,MK,ML,MR,MV,MY,NE,NG,OM,PK,PS,QA,SA,SD,SL,SN,SO,SY,TD,TJ,TM,TN,TR,UZ,XK,YE,YT/g' csf.conf
Does not replace the match inside the file. Output should look like this:
CC_DENY="AR,BE,CL,CN,CO,CS,ES,FR,GR,HK,IT,KO,PA,PE,PH,PL,RS,RU,SG,SK,TH,UA,VN,AE,AF,AL..."
Sed v4.2.2, same result on Debian 8, and Centos 7
This has nothing to do with long text, your regexp just doesn't match the content of your file. Change [^"]+ to [^"]* so it'll match even when there's nothing between the double quotes "". Look:
$ cat csf.conf
CC_DENY = ""
$ sed -E 's/(CC_DENY *= *")[^"]+/\1foo/' csf.conf
CC_DENY = ""
$ sed -E 's/(CC_DENY *= *")[^"]*/\1foo/' csf.conf
CC_DENY = "foo"
wrt the comment below from the OP that this sed command works:
$ cat file
LF_SPI = ""
$ sed -E 's/(LF_SPI *= *\")[^\"]+/\1blah/g' file
LF_SPI = ""
Clearly and predictably, no it does not. It simply can't because the regexp metacharacter + means 1 or more so [^\"]+ states there must be at least one non-" after the " and that just does not exist in the input file. There is no reason to escape the double quotes btw.
Suppose the current variable value in the file is empty. Then your regular expression doesn't match because [^"]+ means "any character, except double quote repeated one or more times".
You might fix it by replacing + quantifier with * (zero or more times). But suppose the value contains a double quote:
CC_DENY = "\""
Then the [^"]* will match everything until it gets to the double quote within the value.
Thus, I suggest the following command:
# Put the variable value here
value='AR,BE\\" ... YE,YT';
sed -i -r 's/^( *CC_DENY *= *").*"/\1'"$value"'"/' csf.conf
Also note, that the expression above uses an anchor for the beginning of the line. Otherwise, it will fail to match as expected, if such a CC_DENY = "... exists in the variable value in the configuration file: CC_DENY = "SOMETHING_CC_DENY = \"value\"".
Sed is certainly the wrong tool for this:
#!/usr/bin/awk -f
BEGIN {
FS = OFS = "\42"
}
$2 = "AR,BE,CL,CN,CO,CS,ES,FR,GR,HK,IT,KO,PA,PE,PH,PL,RS,RU,SG,SK,TH,UA,VN," \
"AE,AF,AL,AS,AZ,BA,BD,BF,BH,BJ,BN,CI,DJ,EG,EH,ER,ET,GM,GN,GW,IQ,IR,IS,JO,KG," \
"KM,KW,KZ,LB,LY,MC,MK,ML,MR,MV,MY,NE,NG,OM,PK,PS,QA,SA,SD,SL,SN,SO,SY,TD,TJ," \
"TM,TN,TR,UZ,XK,YE,YT"
I have a document containing many " marks, but I want to convert it for use in TeX.
TeX uses 2 ` marks for the beginning quote mark, and 2 ' mark for the closing quote mark.
I only want to make changes to these when " appears on a single line in an even number (e.g. there are 2, 4, or 6 "'s on the line). For e.g.
"This line has 2 quotation marks."
--> ``This line has 2 quotation marks.''
"This line," said the spider, "Has 4 quotation marks."
--> ``This line,'' said the spider, ``Has 4 quotation marks.''
"This line," said the spider, must have a problem, because there are 3 quotation marks."
--> (unchanged)
My sentences never break across lines, so there is no need to check on multiple lines.
There are few quotes with single quotes, so I can manually change those.
How can I convert these?
This is my one-liner which is works for me:
awk -F\" '{if((NF-1)%2==0){res=$0;for(i=1;i<NF;i++){to="``";if(i%2==0){to="'\'\''"}res=gensub("\"", to, 1, res)};print res}else{print}}' input.txt >output.txt
And there is long version of this one-liner with comments:
{
FS="\"" # set field separator to double quote
if ((NF-1) % 2 == 0) { # if count of double quotes in line are even number
res = $0 # save original line to res variable
for (i = 1; i < NF; i++) { # for each double quote
to = "``" # replace current occurency of double quote by ``
if (i % 2 == 0) { # if its closes quote replace by ''
to = "''"
}
# replace " by to in res and save result to res
res = gensub("\"", to, 1, res)
}
print res # print resulted line
} else {
print # print original line when nothing to change
}
}
You may run this script by:
awk -f replace-quotes.awk input.txt >output.txt
Here's my one-liner using repeated sed's:
cat file.txt | sed -e 's/"\([^"]*\)"/`\1`/g' | sed '/"/s/`/\"/g' | sed -e 's/`\([^`]*\)`/``\1'\'''\''/g'
(note: it won't work correctly if there are already back-ticks (`) in the file but otherwise should do the trick)
EDIT:
Removed back-tick bug by simplifying, now works for all cases:
cat file.txt | sed -e 's/"\([^"]*\)"/``\1'\'\''/g' | sed '/"/s/``/"/g' | sed '/"/s/'\'\''/"/g'
With comments:
cat file.txt # read file
| sed -e 's/"\([^"]*\)"/``\1'\'\''/g' # initial replace
| sed '/"/s/``/"/g' # revert `` to " on lines with extra "
| sed '/"/s/'\'\''/"/g' # revert '' to " on lines with extra "
Using awk
awk '{n=gsub("\"","&")}!(n%2){while(n--){n%2?Q=q:Q="`";sub("\"",Q Q)}}1' q=\' in
Explanation
awk '{
n=gsub("\"","&") # set n to the number of quotes in the current line
}
!(n%2){ # if there are even number of quotes
while(n--){ # as long as we have double-quotes
n%2?Q=q:Q="`" # alternate Q between a backtick and single quote
sub("\"",Q Q) # replace the next double quote with two of whatever Q is
}
}1 # print out all other lines untouched'
q=\' in # set the q variable to a single quote and pass the file 'in' as input
Using sed
sed '/^\([^"]*"[^"]*"[^"]*\)*$/s/"\([^"]*\)"/``\1'\'\''/g' in
This might work for you:
sed 'h;s/"\([^"]*\)"/``\1''\'\''/g;/"/g' file
Explanation:
Make a copy of the original line h
Replace pairs of "'s s/"\([^"]*\)"/``\1''\'\''/g
Check for odd " and if found revert to original line /"/g