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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 want to create a bash script to change the configuration file of an application. The script will read a variable and replace the value of a setting that I want to change with the variable value.
#!/bin/bash
mysqlurlenv1="jdbc:mysl://xx.xx.xx.xx:3306
mysqlurlenv2="jdbc:mysl://xx.xx.xx.xz:3306
configFile=app.conf
pattern=$1
case "$pattern" in
1)
sed -i.bak "s/^\(mysql.db.url =\).*/\1 ${mysqldburl_env1}/"
;;
2)
sed -i.bak "s/^\(mysql.db.url =\).*/\1 ${mysqldburl_env2}/"
;;
*)
echo "Wrong input...try again"
esac
I have a config file with the following entry
mysql.db.driver = com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
mysql.db.url = jdbc:mysql....
mysql.db.uname = admin
When I run the script I got this error
sed: -e expression #1, char 40: unknown option to `s'
How to get those defined variable in the config file ? Any help will appreciated
Rgds
Din
You are using this sed pattern s/FIND_STRING/REPLACE_STRING, that is the common way to do it.
But your REPLACE_STRING contains /, so your pattern will become s/FIND_STRING/jdbc:mysl://.... and that is invalid, because it contains too much /.
Sed accepts any character as field separator, so in your case you need change sed pattern field separator from / to something else, like |.
Example:
$ mysqlurlenv1="jdbc:mysl://xx.xx.xx.xx:3306"
$ echo "mysql.db.url = jdbc:mysql" | sed "s|^\(mysql.db.url =\).*|\1 ${mysqlurlenv1}|"
mysql.db.url = jdbc:mysl://xx.xx.xx.xx:3306
I've been throught all possible answers in SO but still I cannot make my script work.
I have a query script in SPARQL with a line that needs to substitute the mark %contributor% by a variable between "<>"
?link dcterms:contributor %contributor%
Into
?link dcterms:contributor <http://newurl>
If I execute the code in the shell, the substitution is done properly and I see my query with the %contributor% tag successfully substituted. But when executed inside a Makefile, even with the double $$ dollar to allow the expansion of variables I don't manage to get it done.
for l in `cat sref.csv`; do \
QUERY=$$(cat queries/table_knowledge.rq | sed "s#%contributor%#<$$l>#g") ; \
echo $$QUERY ; \
done
Also like this it does not work:
QUERY=$$(cat queries/table_knowledge.rq | sed 's/%contributor%/<$(l)>/g') ; \
or
QUERY=$$(cat queries/table_knowledge.rq | sed 's/%contributor%/<${l}>/g') ; \
Use double quotes so that sed would expand variables.
Use a separator different than / since the replacement contains /
QUERY=$(cat queries/table_knowledge.rq | sed "s|%contributor%|<${l}>|g") ;
Test:
$ test="http://test.com"
$ echo "?link dcterms:contributor %contributor%" > source.file
$ x=$(cat source.file|sed "s|%contributor%|<${test}>|g")
$ echo $x
?link dcterms:contributor <http://test.com>
I have been struggling in bash to parse and read a parameter file into multiple gobal variables. We run both HPUX and Linux environments, and I'm trying to get this working in BASH. It is currently giving me error on the sed statement. Even when I take out the sed, inside the loop it reads the variable(s), but it the values revert to the global definition as soon as I'm out of the loop. Have tried adding "#!/bin/sh" at top of file, but that doesn't work like borne shell, the commented code is borne shell from the HPUX system. Any help would be appreciated!
set -xv
ReadStat() {
set -xv
while read EngName AllTabs Distribs DropDist BlockSet BlockExp BlockBy MaxProcs ; do
echo "read: EngName=$EngName AllTabs=$AllTabs Distribs=$Distribs DropDist=$DropDist BlockSet=$BlockSet BlockExp=$BlockExp BlockBy=$BlockBy MaxProcs=$MaxProcs "
done < sed -e "s/||/|-|/g" -e "s/||/|-|/g" -e "s/||/|-|/g" -e "s/|/ /g" $StatFile
#cat $StatFile |\
# sed -e "s/||/|-|/g" -e "s/||/|-|/g" -e "s/||/|-|/g" |\
# sed -e "s/|/ /g" |\
# read EngName AllTabs Distribs DropDist BlockSet BlockExp BlockBy MaxProcs
}
# main() {
BaseNameIs=`basename $0 '.sh'`
StatFile=/tmp/kz.stat
EngName="it1xxx"
CronJob='Y'
Distribs='B'
DropDist='N'
AllTabs='N'
BlockSet='N'
# BlockExp=`date '+%Y%m%d%H%M'`
BlockExp=`date '+%Y%m%d'`'0000'
BlockBy='none'
MaxProcs=30
MyHost=`hostname`
ReadStat
# main() }
Input file looks like:
it1xxx|Y|B|N|Y|201401071110|none|30|
The bash read command can handle this:
vars="EngName AllTabs Distribs DropDist BlockSet BlockExp BlockBy MaxProcs"
IFS='|' read -r $vars dummy < kz.stat
for var in $vars; do echo "$var = ${!var}"; done
EngName = it1xxx
AllTabs = Y
Distribs = B
DropDist = N
BlockSet = Y
BlockExp = 201401071110
BlockBy = none
MaxProcs = 30
It's crucial to not quote $vars in both the read and for commands.
The problem is that while loops generally run in their own sub-shell. Probably the most straightforward solution is to save the output into a temporary file and then source the temporary file.
Here's a web page that illustrates some solutions.
fvue.nl wiki page
I want to pipe the output of a "template" file into MySQL, the file having variables like ${dbName} interspersed. What is the command line utility to replace these instances and dump the output to standard output?
The input file is considered to be safe, but faulty substitution definitions could exist. Performing the replacement should avoid performing unintended code execution.
Update
Here is a solution from yottatsa on a similar question that only does replacement for variables like $VAR or ${VAR}, and is a brief one-liner
i=32 word=foo envsubst < template.txt
Of course if i and word are in your environment, then it is just
envsubst < template.txt
On my Mac it looks like it was installed as part of gettext and from MacGPG2
Old Answer
Here is an improvement to the solution from mogsie on a similar question, my solution does not require you to escale double quotes, mogsie's does, but his is a one liner!
eval "cat <<EOF
$(<template.txt)
EOF
" 2> /dev/null
The power on these two solutions is that you only get a few types of shell expansions that don't occur normally $((...)), `...`, and $(...), though backslash is an escape character here, but you don't have to worry that the parsing has a bug, and it does multiple lines just fine.
Sed!
Given template.txt:
The number is ${i}
The word is ${word}
we just have to say:
sed -e "s/\${i}/1/" -e "s/\${word}/dog/" template.txt
Thanks to Jonathan Leffler for the tip to pass multiple -e arguments to the same sed invocation.
Use /bin/sh. Create a small shell script that sets the variables, and then parse the template using the shell itself. Like so (edit to handle newlines correctly):
File template.txt:
the number is ${i}
the word is ${word}
File script.sh:
#!/bin/sh
#Set variables
i=1
word="dog"
#Read in template one line at the time, and replace variables (more
#natural (and efficient) way, thanks to Jonathan Leffler).
while read line
do
eval echo "$line"
done < "./template.txt"
Output:
#sh script.sh
the number is 1
the word is dog
I was thinking about this again, given the recent interest, and I think that the tool that I was originally thinking of was m4, the macro processor for autotools. So instead of the variable I originally specified, you'd use:
$echo 'I am a DBNAME' | m4 -DDBNAME="database name"
Create rendertemplate.sh:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
eval "echo \"$(cat $1)\""
And template.tmpl:
Hello, ${WORLD}
Goodbye, ${CHEESE}
Render the template:
$ export WORLD=Foo
$ CHEESE=Bar ./rendertemplate.sh template.tmpl
Hello, Foo
Goodbye, Bar
template.txt
Variable 1 value: ${var1}
Variable 2 value: ${var2}
data.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
declare var1="value 1"
declare var2="value 2"
parser.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# args
declare file_data=$1
declare file_input=$2
declare file_output=$3
source $file_data
eval "echo \"$(< $file_input)\"" > $file_output
./parser.sh data.sh template.txt parsed_file.txt
parsed_file.txt
Variable 1 value: value 1
Variable 2 value: value 2
Here's a robust Bash function that - despite using eval - should be safe to use.
All ${varName} variable references in the input text are expanded based on the calling shell's variables.
Nothing else is expanded: neither variable references whose names are not enclosed in {...} (such as $varName), nor command substitutions ($(...) and legacy syntax `...`), nor arithmetic substitutions ($((...)) and legacy syntax $[...]).
To treat a $ as a literal, \-escape it; e.g.:\${HOME}
Note that input is only accepted via stdin.
Example:
$ expandVarsStrict <<<'$HOME is "${HOME}"; `date` and \$(ls)' # only ${HOME} is expanded
$HOME is "/Users/jdoe"; `date` and $(ls)
Function source code:
expandVarsStrict(){
local line lineEscaped
while IFS= read -r line || [[ -n $line ]]; do # the `||` clause ensures that the last line is read even if it doesn't end with \n
# Escape ALL chars. that could trigger an expansion..
IFS= read -r -d '' lineEscaped < <(printf %s "$line" | tr '`([$' '\1\2\3\4')
# ... then selectively reenable ${ references
lineEscaped=${lineEscaped//$'\4'{/\${}
# Finally, escape embedded double quotes to preserve them.
lineEscaped=${lineEscaped//\"/\\\"}
eval "printf '%s\n' \"$lineEscaped\"" | tr '\1\2\3\4' '`([$'
done
}
The function assumes that no 0x1, 0x2, 0x3, and 0x4 control characters are present in the input, because those chars. are used internally - since the function processes text, that should be a safe assumption.
here's my solution with perl based on former answer, replaces environment variables:
perl -p -e 's/\$\{(\w+)\}/(exists $ENV{$1}?$ENV{$1}:"missing variable $1")/eg' < infile > outfile
I would suggest using something like Sigil:
https://github.com/gliderlabs/sigil
It is compiled to a single binary, so it's extremely easy to install on systems.
Then you can do a simple one-liner like the following:
cat my-file.conf.template | sigil -p $(env) > my-file.conf
This is much safer than eval and easier then using regex or sed
Here is a way to get the shell to do the substitution for you, as if the contents of the file were instead typed between double quotes.
Using the example of template.txt with contents:
The number is ${i}
The word is ${word}
The following line will cause the shell to interpolate the contents of template.txt and write the result to standard out.
i='1' word='dog' sh -c 'echo "'"$(cat template.txt)"'"'
Explanation:
i and word are passed as environment variables scopped to the execution of sh.
sh executes the contents of the string it is passed.
Strings written next to one another become one string, that string is:
'echo "' + "$(cat template.txt)" + '"'
Since the substitution is between ", "$(cat template.txt)" becomes the output of cat template.txt.
So the command executed by sh -c becomes:
echo "The number is ${i}\nThe word is ${word}",
where i and word are the specified environment variables.
If you are open to using Perl, that would be my suggestion. Although there are probably some sed and/or AWK experts that probably know how to do this much easier. If you have a more complex mapping with more than just dbName for your replacements you could extend this pretty easily, but you might just as well put it into a standard Perl script at that point.
perl -p -e 's/\$\{dbName\}/testdb/s' yourfile | mysql
A short Perl script to do something slightly more complicated (handle multiple keys):
#!/usr/bin/env perl
my %replace = ( 'dbName' => 'testdb', 'somethingElse' => 'fooBar' );
undef $/;
my $buf = <STDIN>;
$buf =~ s/\$\{$_\}/$replace{$_}/g for keys %replace;
print $buf;
If you name the above script as replace-script, it could then be used as follows:
replace-script < yourfile | mysql
file.tpl:
The following bash function should only replace ${var1} syntax and ignore
other shell special chars such as `backticks` or $var2 or "double quotes".
If I have missed anything - let me know.
script.sh:
template(){
# usage: template file.tpl
while read -r line ; do
line=${line//\"/\\\"}
line=${line//\`/\\\`}
line=${line//\$/\\\$}
line=${line//\\\${/\${}
eval "echo \"$line\"";
done < ${1}
}
var1="*replaced*"
var2="*not replaced*"
template file.tpl > result.txt
I found this thread while wondering the same thing. It inspired me to this (careful with the backticks)
$ echo $MYTEST
pass!
$ cat FILE
hello $MYTEST world
$ eval echo `cat FILE`
hello pass! world
Lots of choices here, but figured I'd toss mine on the heap. It is perl based, only targets variables of the form ${...}, takes the file to process as an argument and outputs the converted file on stdout:
use Env;
Env::import();
while(<>) { $_ =~ s/(\${\w+})/$1/eeg; $text .= $_; }
print "$text";
Of course I'm not really a perl person, so there could easily be a fatal flaw (works for me though).
It can be done in bash itself if you have control of the configuration file format. You just need to source (".") the configuration file rather than subshell it. That ensures the variables are created in the context of the current shell (and continue to exist) rather than the subshell (where the variable disappear when the subshell exits).
$ cat config.data
export parm_jdbc=jdbc:db2://box7.co.uk:5000/INSTA
export parm_user=pax
export parm_pwd=never_you_mind
$ cat go.bash
. config.data
echo "JDBC string is " $parm_jdbc
echo "Username is " $parm_user
echo "Password is " $parm_pwd
$ bash go.bash
JDBC string is jdbc:db2://box7.co.uk:5000/INSTA
Username is pax
Password is never_you_mind
If your config file cannot be a shell script, you can just 'compile' it before executing thus (the compilation depends on your input format).
$ cat config.data
parm_jdbc=jdbc:db2://box7.co.uk:5000/INSTA # JDBC URL
parm_user=pax # user name
parm_pwd=never_you_mind # password
$ cat go.bash
cat config.data
| sed 's/#.*$//'
| sed 's/[ \t]*$//'
| sed 's/^[ \t]*//'
| grep -v '^$'
| sed 's/^/export '
>config.data-compiled
. config.data-compiled
echo "JDBC string is " $parm_jdbc
echo "Username is " $parm_user
echo "Password is " $parm_pwd
$ bash go.bash
JDBC string is jdbc:db2://box7.co.uk:5000/INSTA
Username is pax
Password is never_you_mind
In your specific case, you could use something like:
$ cat config.data
export p_p1=val1
export p_p2=val2
$ cat go.bash
. ./config.data
echo "select * from dbtable where p1 = '$p_p1' and p2 like '$p_p2%' order by p1"
$ bash go.bash
select * from dbtable where p1 = 'val1' and p2 like 'val2%' order by p1
Then pipe the output of go.bash into MySQL and voila, hopefully you won't destroy your database :-).
In place perl editing of potentially multiple files, with backups.
perl -e 's/\$\{([^}]+)\}/defined $ENV{$1} ? $ENV{$1} : ""/eg' \
-i.orig \
-p config/test/*
I created a shell templating script named shtpl. My shtpl uses a jinja-like syntax which, now that I use ansible a lot, I'm pretty familiar with:
$ cat /tmp/test
{{ aux=4 }}
{{ myarray=( a b c d ) }}
{{ A_RANDOM=$RANDOM }}
$A_RANDOM
{% if $(( $A_RANDOM%2 )) == 0 %}
$A_RANDOM is even
{% else %}
$A_RANDOM is odd
{% endif %}
{% if $(( $A_RANDOM%2 )) == 0 %}
{% for n in 1 2 3 $aux %}
\$myarray[$((n-1))]: ${myarray[$((n-1))]}
/etc/passwd field #$n: $(grep $USER /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f$n)
{% endfor %}
{% else %}
{% for n in {1..4} %}
\$myarray[$((n-1))]: ${myarray[$((n-1))]}
/etc/group field #$n: $(grep ^$USER /etc/group | cut -d: -f$n)
{% endfor %}
{% endif %}
$ ./shtpl < /tmp/test
6535
6535 is odd
$myarray[0]: a
/etc/group field #1: myusername
$myarray[1]: b
/etc/group field #2: x
$myarray[2]: c
/etc/group field #3: 1001
$myarray[3]: d
/etc/group field #4:
More info on my github
To me this is the easiest and most powerful solution, you can even include other templates using the same command eval echo "$(<template.txt):
Example with nested template
create the template files, the variables are in regular bash syntax ${VARIABLE_NAME} or $VARIABLE_NAME
you have to escape special characters with \ in your templates otherwhise they will be interpreted by eval.
template.txt
Hello ${name}!
eval echo $(<nested-template.txt)
nested-template.txt
Nice to have you here ${name} :\)
create source file
template.source
declare name=royman
parse the template
source template.source && eval echo "$(<template.txt)"
the output
Hello royman!
Nice to have you here royman :)
envsubst
please don't use anything else (ie. don't eval)