I want to delete all the text between a pair of "};" which contains a particular keyword. What i want is
input:
}; text text KEYWORD text text };
Output:
}; };
Suggest me a simple regular expression. I know 'sed' is to be used.
+2
A:
\};[^}]*KEYWORD[^}]*\};
will work if there are no } between the two delimiters.
So:
sed 's/\};[^}]*KEYWORD[^}]*\};/}; };/g' file.in > file.out
Tim Pietzcker
2010-09-17 08:36:35
but this would match the start and end markers as well right?
Gopi
2010-09-17 08:40:16
Yes, and they are replaced right back. sed doesn't have lookaround (GNU BRE engine).
Tim Pietzcker
2010-09-17 08:41:16
Just match the whole thing and then replace it with the literal "}; };"
colithium
2010-09-17 08:41:33
getting some error. "RE error: parentheses not balanced"
sole007
2010-09-17 09:11:57
Hm. Does `sed 's/\};[^\}]*KEYWORD[^\}]*\};/}; };/g' file.in > file.out` work?
Tim Pietzcker
2010-09-17 09:14:00
nop! same error! also there can be multiple lines between a pair of };. I tried using: `sed "s/[}][;][^}]*KEYWORD[^}]*[}][;]/}; };/g" file.in > file.out` . not working
sole007
2010-09-17 09:20:19
A:
Below regex will match the thing that you want to delete -
(?<=\};).*?KEYWORD.*?(?=\};)
Edit: this wont work with sed as pointed out by @Tim as sed does not support lookarounds.
Gopi
2010-09-17 08:38:12
This is not looking for the keyword, and won't work in sed (no lookaround).
Tim Pietzcker
2010-09-17 08:39:43
Thanks @Tim for bringing it to my notice. Fixed. And yeah this is general regex, I am not sure about any specifics with sed.
Gopi
2010-09-17 08:42:51
A:
This should work under most conditions:
sed '/};[^}]*};/{s/};[^}]*};/}; };/;b};/};/!b;:a;N;/\n[^}]*};/!ba;s/[^;]*\n.*\n[^}]*/ /' inputfile
There will probably be some corner cases where this fails. Change the space near the end to \n if you want the result to be on two lines.
Examples:
}; test ;} becomes }; };
}; becomes
test
};}; };
abc }; becomes
test
}; defabc }; }; def
abc }; 111 becomes
test1
test2
222 }; defabc }; }; def
Dennis Williamson
2010-09-17 13:29:26
A:
The simplest approach possible:
cat file.in | sed "/KEYWORD/s/};[^}]*};/}; };/g" > file.out
mhitza
2010-09-18 10:16:04