Very Computer

by **Nele Paulse** » Tue, 19 Jan 1999 04:00:00

Hi,

my question is, how can I mask the single
quotation mark in my file for sed

I have a lot of SQL-Loader files of this kind:

cat t55.ctl
load data
infile 't55'
truncate
into table A_220_T55
fields terminated by ';' TRAILING NULLCOLS
(AAA_000_KEY char ,
B_220_BBB_LFD_NR char ,
AAA_220_BBB char )

there is given a delimiter ';'

The delimiter should be changed to a.

#!/bin/ksh
#set -x
for file in t*.ctl
do
sed -e 's/;/a/' $file >$file.new
mv $file.new $file
done

That's ok.

Now the delimiter should be rechanged from a to ;.
I'd tried

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' $file >$file.new

It doesn't work.

How to mask the single quotation mark inside the sed command?

TIA,

Nele

by **Dragan Jurkovi** » Tue, 19 Jan 1999 04:00:00

sed -e "s/'a'/';'/" $file > $file.new (works under 2.6)

Dragan Jurkovic
MRRM (Canada) Inc.

by **Bernard P. Murray, P** » Tue, 19 Jan 1999 04:00:00

> Hi,

> my question is, how can I mask the single
> quotation mark in my file for sed
[snip]
> TIA,
> Nele

I doubt if this is Solaris-specific, but...

I'm not sure I gathered what you were after but
if it is a simple swap from ; to . then maybe
tr would be better than sed? Alternatively,
use the octal codes for the problem characters?
The comp.lang.awk newsgroup may be a better
bet for this question.
Good luck,
Bernard
--
Bernard P. Murray, PhD
Dept. Cell. Mol. Pharmacol., UCSF, San Francisco, USA

by **Neil Ricke** » Tue, 19 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>my question is, how can I mask the single
>quotation mark in my file for sed

You should be able to use either:

sed -e "s/'a'/';'/"

or

sed -e s/\'a\'/\';\'/

But it won't work the way you tried it.

by **Al A** » Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:00:00

will NOT answer your q per se
but
i once posted to seders:
commandline sed scripts considered harmful

i.e.
when u have conflict with the shell
bypass the shell

how

use a sedscript file, instead

-------------------------------------------------
to master regular expressions
to master sed
join my informal email list seders

-------------------------------------------------

: Hi,

: my question is, how can I mask the single
: quotation mark in my file for sed

: I have a lot of SQL-Loader files of this kind:

: cat t55.ctl
: load data
: infile 't55'
: truncate
: into table A_220_T55
: fields terminated by ';' TRAILING NULLCOLS
: (AAA_000_KEY char ,
: B_220_BBB_LFD_NR char ,
: AAA_220_BBB char )

: there is given a delimiter ';'

: The delimiter should be changed to a.

: #!/bin/ksh
: #set -x
: for file in t*.ctl
: do
: sed -e 's/;/a/' $file >$file.new
: mv $file.new $file
: done

: That's ok.

: Now the delimiter should be rechanged from a to ;.
: I'd tried

: sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' $file >$file.new

: It doesn't work.

: How to mask the single quotation mark inside the sed command?

: TIA,

: Nele

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it is not zat we do not see the s o l u t i o n
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by **Ken Pizzi** » Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:00:00

Quote:>sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' $file >$file.new

>It doesn't work.

>How to mask the single quotation mark inside the sed command?

This is not a sed-specific problem --- it is an issue of how to
get the command-interpreter of one's choice to pass command-line
arguments of one's choice to a program. Two fairly generic ways
of doing this with Bourne-class shells (like ksh, which was indicated
in an omitted section of the original post) are:
1. use double-quotes to protect the arguments containing
single-quotes from shell interpretation:
sed "s/'a'/';'/" "$file" >"$file.new"
2. bounce in-and-out of single-quote mode (since there is
no mechanism in Bourne-class shells for escaping a
single-quote within single-quotes):
sed 's/'\''a'\''/'\'';'\''/' "$file" >"$file.new"

(Stratagy #2 is quite visually ugly, and unnecessary for this
particular problem. But there exist some other contexts in
which it is extremly useful to know this method --- specifically
when you have a rare need for a single quote in a long argument
which contains many $s and/or `s which you do not wish expanded.)

--Ken Pizzini

by **hans maye** » Mon, 25 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>>my question is, how can I mask the single
>>quotation mark in my file for sed

>You should be able to use either:

> sed -e "s/'a'/';'/"

>or

> sed -e s/\'a\'/\';\'/

>But it won't work the way you tried it.

no this doesn't work. why making a quotation mark ?
the following works perfect on my solaris 2.5.1 with ksh , sh and csh

root> echo 'a;' | sed -e "s/a/;/"
;;
root> echo 'a;' | sed -e "s/;/a/"
aa

--
best regards from vienna | mayer (at) unisys.co.at_SPAM
hans | mayer (at) relay.bfl.at_SPAM

Very Computer

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?

sed -e 's/\'a\'/\';\'/' ?