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
Source file looks like this:
"google.com", "vuln_example1
vuln_example2
vuln_example3"
"facebook.com", "vuln_example2"
"reddit.com", "stupidly_long_vuln_name1"
"stackoverflow.com", ""
I've been trying to get the output to be something like this but the line breaks seem to cause me no end of problems. I'm using a "while read line" job to do this because I do some processing on the columns (e.g Vulnerability count and url in this example). This is output into a jenkins job (yuk).
The basic summary of the problem is getting the linebreaks in the csv to be output into the third column while retaining the table structure. I've got a sort of weird example of the desired output below.
||hostname ||Vulnerability count|| Vulnerability list || URL ||
|google.com |3 |vuln_example1 |http://cve.com/vuln_example1|
| | |vuln_example2 |http://cve.com/vuln_example2|
| | |vuln_example3 |http://cve.com/vuln_example3|
|facebook.com |1 |vuln_example2 |http://cve.com/vuln_example2|
|reddit.com |1 |stupidly_long_vuln_name1 |http://cve.com/stupidly_long_vuln_name1|
|stackoverflow.com |0 | ||
Looking at this... I've got a feeling it might be easier by showing some code and example output.
Parsing your input with the command line below makes the problem easier (I'm assuming the inputs are correct):
perl -0777 -pe 's/([^"])\s*\n/\1 /g ; s/[",]//g' < sample.txt
This line invokes Perl to perform two regex substitutions:
s/([^"])\s*\n/\1 /g: This substitution removes an end of line if it doesn't terminate by a quote " (i.e. if a host entry, with all vulnerabilities isn't yet complete).
s/[",]//g removes all quotes and commas remaining.
For each host entry like this one:
"google.com", "vuln_example1
vuln_example2
vuln_example3"
You'll get:
google.com vuln_example1 vuln_example2 vuln_example3
Then you can assume for each line, you have an host and a set of vulnerabilities.
The given example below stores vulnerabilities in an array and loop through it, formatting and printing each line:
# Replace this by your custom function
# to get an URL for a given vulnerability
function get_vuln_url () {
# This just displays a random url for an non-empty arg
[[ -z "$1" ]] || echo "http://host/$1.htm"
}
# Format your line (see printf help)
function print_row () {
printf "%-20s|%5s|%-30s|%s\n" "$#"
}
# The perl line reformat
perl -0777 -pe 's/([^"])\s*\n/\1 /g ; s/[",]//g' < sample.txt |
while read -r line ; do
arr=(${line})
print_row "${arr[0]}" "$((${#arr[#]} - 1))" "${arr[1]}" "$(get_vuln_url ${arr[1]})"
#echo -e "${arr[0]}\t|$vul_count\t|${arr[1]}\t|$(get_vuln_url ${arr[1]})"
for v in "${arr[#]:2}" ; do
print_row " " " " "$v" "$(get_vuln_url ${arr[1]})"
done
done
Output:
google.com | 3|vuln_example1 |http://host/vuln_example1.htm
| |vuln_example2 |http://host/vuln_example1.htm
| |vuln_example3 |http://host/vuln_example1.htm
facebook.com | 1|vuln_example2 |http://host/vuln_example2.htm
reddit.com | 1|stupidly_long_vuln_name1 |http://host/stupidly_long_vuln_name1.htm
stackoverflow.com | 0| |
Update.
If you don't have Perl, and if your file doesn't have tabulations, you can use this command as a workaround instead:
tr '\n' '\t' < sample.txt | sed -r -e 's/([^"])\s*\t/\1 /g' -e 's/[",]//g' -e 's/\t/\n/g'
tr '\n' '\t' replaces all ends of line by tabulations
sed part acts like Perl line, except it deals with tabulations instead of ends of line and restores tabulations back to ends of line.
I want to stick all the variables into one variable
A=('blah')
AA=('blah2')
AAA=('blah3')
AAB=('blah4')
AAC=('blah5')
#^^lets pretend theres 100 more of these ^^
#Variable composition
#after AAA, is AAB then AAC then AAD etc etc, does that 100 times
I want them all placed into this MASTER variable
#MASTER=${A}${AA}${AAA} (<-- insert AAB, AAC and 100 more variables here)
I obviously don't want to type 100 variables in this expression because there's probably an easier way to do this. Plus I'm gonna be doing more of these therefore I need it automated.
I'm relatively new to sed, awk, is there a way to append those 100 variables into the master variable?
For this specific purpose I DO NOT want an array.
You can use a simple one-liner, quite straightforward, though more expensive:
master=$(set | grep -E '^(A|AA|A[A-D][A-D])=' | sort | cut -f2- -d= | tr -d '\n')
set lists all the variables in var=name format
grep filters out the variables we need
sort puts them in the right order (probably optional since set gives a sorted output)
cut extracts the values, removing the variable names
tr removes the newlines
Let's test it.
A=1
AA=2
AAA=3
AAB=4
AAC=5
AAD=6
AAAA=99 # just to make sure we don't pick this one up
master=$(set | grep -E '^(A|AA|A[A-D][A-D])=' | sort | cut -f2- -d= | tr -d '\n')
echo "$master"
Output:
123456
With my best guess, how about:
#!/bin/bash
A=('blah')
AA=('blah2')
AAA=('blah3')
AAB=('blah4')
AAC=('blah5')
# to be continued ..
for varname in A AA A{A..D}{A..Z}; do
value=${!varname}
if [ -n "$value" ]; then
MASTER+=$value
fi
done
echo $MASTER
which yields:
blahblah2blah3blah4blah5...
Although I'm not sure whether this is what the OP wants.
echo {a..z}{a..z}{a..z} | tr ' ' '\n' | head -n 100 | tail -n 3
adt
adu
adv
tells us, that it would go from AAA to ADV to reach 100, or for ADY for 103.
echo A{A..D}{A..Z} | sed 's/ /}${/g'
AAA}${AAB}${AAC}${AAD}${AAE}${AAF}${AAG}${AAH}${AAI}${AAJ}${AAK}${AAL}${AAM}${AAN}${AAO}${AAP}${AAQ}${AAR}${AAS}${AAT}${AAU}${AAV}${AAW}${AAX}${AAY}${AAZ}${ABA}${ABB}${ABC}${ABD}${ABE}${ABF}${ABG}${ABH}${ABI}${ABJ}${ABK}${ABL}${ABM}${ABN}${ABO}${ABP}${ABQ}${ABR}${ABS}${ABT}${ABU}${ABV}${ABW}${ABX}${ABY}${ABZ}${ACA}${ACB}${ACC}${ACD}${ACE}${ACF}${ACG}${ACH}${ACI}${ACJ}${ACK}${ACL}${ACM}${ACN}${ACO}${ACP}${ACQ}${ACR}${ACS}${ACT}${ACU}${ACV}${ACW}${ACX}${ACY}${ACZ}${ADA}${ADB}${ADC}${ADD}${ADE}${ADF}${ADG}${ADH}${ADI}${ADJ}${ADK}${ADL}${ADM}${ADN}${ADO}${ADP}${ADQ}${ADR}${ADS}${ADT}${ADU}${ADV}${ADW}${ADX}${ADY}${ADZ
The final cosmetics is easily made by hand.
One-liner using a for loop:
for n in A AA A{A..D}{A..Z}; do str+="${!n}"; done; echo ${str}
Output:
blahblah2blah3blah4blah5
Say you have the input file inputfile.txt with arbitrary variable names and values:
name="Joe"
last="Doe"
A="blah"
AA="blah2
then do:
master=$(eval echo $(grep -o "^[^=]\+" inputfile.txt | sed 's/^/\$/;:a;N;$!ba;s/\n/$/g'))
This will concatenate the values of all variables in inputfile.txt into master variable. So you will have:
>echo $master
JoeDoeblahblah2
This question already has answers here:
BASH extract value after string in variable Not file [duplicate]
(2 answers)
Closed last year.
I need to extract a number from the output of a command: cmd. The output is type: 1000
So my question is how to execute the command, store its output in a variable and extract 1000 in a shell script. Also how do you store the extracted string in a variable?
This question has been answered in pieces here before, it would be something like this:
line=$(sed -n '2p' myfile)
echo "$line"
if [ `echo $line || grep 'type: 1000' ` ] then;
echo "It's there!";
fi;
Store output of sed into a variable
String contains in Bash
EDIT: sed is very limited, you would need to use bash, perl or awk for what you need.
This is a typical use case for grep:
output=$(cmd | grep -o '[0-9]\+')
You can write the output of a command or even a pipeline of commands into a shell variable using so called command substitution:
variable=$(cmd);
In comments it appeared that the output of cmd contains more lines than the type : 1000. In this case I would suggest sed:
output=$(cmd | sed -n 's/type : \([0-9]\+\)/\1/p;q')
You tagged your question as sed but your question description does not restrict other tools, so here's a solution using awk.
output = `cmd | awk -F':' '/type: [0-9]+/{print $2}'`
Alternatively, you can use the newer $( ) syntax. Some find the newer syntax preferable and it can be conveniently nested, without the need for escaping backtics.
output = $(cmd | awk -F':' '/type: [0-9]+/{print $2}')
If the output is rigidly restricted to "type: " followed by a number, you can just use cut.
var=$(echo 'type: 1000' | cut -f 2 -d ' ')
Obviously you'll have to pipe the output of your command to cut, I'm using echo as a demo.
In addition, I'd use grep and then cut if the string you are searching is more complex. If we assume there can be all kind of numbers in the text, but only one occurrence of "type: " followed by a number, you can use the command:
>> var=$(echo "hello 12 type: 1000 foo 1001" | grep -oE "type: [0-9]+" | cut -f 2 -d ' ')
>> echo $var
1000
You can use the | operator to send the output of one command to another, like so:
echo " 1\n 2\n 3\n" | grep "2"
This sends the string " 1\n 2\n 3\n" to the grep command, which will search for the line containing 2. It sound like you might want to do something like:
cmd | grep "type"
Here is a plain sed solution that uses a regualar expression to find the number in your string:
cmd | sed 's/^.*type: \([0-9]\+\)/\1/g'
^ means from the start
.* can be any character (also none)
\([0-9]\+\) are numbers (minimum one character)
\1 means it takes the first pattern it finds (and only in this case) and uses it as replacement for the whole string
Asking a question here is always my last resort. I tried everything even the most embarrassing code so i'm confused on explaining what i tried with no success. I have:
echo $output | grep -i -m 1 "Time:" | sed 's/.*\s\([0-9]*:[0-9]*:[0-9]*\).time.*/\1/'
it outputs:
23:25:31
Easy.
But i'd like to add one more string to the end, like " , $year" - so that i have:
23:25:31 , 2013
The problem is that whatever i tried (printf, -n, -e, -ne, brackets, quotes, |, ;, &, /r, etc.) gives an error or goes to a new line anyway.
Any suggestion will be really appreciated.
Thanks
time=$(echo $output | grep -i -m 1 "Time:" | sed 's/.*\s\([0-9]*:[0-9]*:[0-9]*\).time.*/\1/')
echo "The time is ${time}, 2013"
Alternates
add tr -d '\n' at the end of echo+grep+sed pipeline.
{ entire-echo-grep-sed-pipeline ; echo , 2013 ; } | xargs echo (This however, will add a space before ,)