Using sed
# FILE SPACING: # double space a file sed G # double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file # should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text. sed '/^$/d;G' # triple space a file sed 'G;G' # undo double-spacing (assumes even-numbered lines are always blank) sed 'n;d' # insert a blank line above every line which matches "regex" sed '/regex/{x;p;x;}' # insert a blank line below every line which matches "regex" sed '/regex/G' # insert a blank line above and below every line which matches "regex" sed '/regex/{x;p;x;G;}' # NUMBERING: # number each line of a file (simple left alignment). Using a tab (see # note on 't' at end of file) instead of space will preserve margins. sed = filename | sed 'N;s/n/t/' # number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned) sed = filename | sed 'N; s/^/ /; s/ *(.{6,})n/1 /' # number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank sed '/./=' filename | sed '/./N; s/n/ /' # count lines (emulates "wc -l") sed -n '$=' # TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION: # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format. sed 's/.$//' # assumes that all lines end with CR/LF sed 's/^M$//' # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M sed 's/x0D$//' # works on ssed, gsed 3.02.80 or higher # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format. sed "s/$/`echo -e r`/" # command line under ksh sed 's/$'"/`echo r`/" # command line under bash sed "s/$/`echo r`/" # command line under zsh sed 's/$/r/' # gsed 3.02.80 or higher # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format. sed "s/$//" # method 1 sed -n p # method 2 # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format. # Can only be done with UnxUtils sed, version 4.0.7 or higher. The # UnxUtils version can be identified by the custom "--text" switch # which appears when you use the "--help" switch. Otherwise, changing # DOS newlines to Unix newlines cannot be done with sed in a DOS # environment. Use "tr" instead. sed "s/r//" infile >outfile # UnxUtils sed v4.0.7 or higher tr -d r <infile >outfile # GNU tr version 1.22 or higher # delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line # aligns all text flush left sed 's/^[ t]*//' # see note on 't' at end of file # delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line sed 's/[ t]*$//' # see note on 't' at end of file # delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line sed 's/^[ t]*//;s/[ t]*$//' # insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset) sed 's/^/ /' # align all text flush right on a 79-column width sed -e :a -e 's/^.{1,78}$/ &/;ta' # set at 78 plus 1 space # center all text in the middle of 79-column width. In method 1, # spaces at the beginning of the line are significant, and trailing # spaces are appended at the end of the line. In method 2, spaces at # the beginning of the line are discarded in centering the line, and # no trailing spaces appear at the end of lines. sed -e :a -e 's/^.{1,77}$/ & /;ta' # method 1 sed -e :a -e 's/^.{1,77}$/ &/;ta' -e 's/( *)1/1/' # method 2 # substitute (find and replace) "foo" with "bar" on each line sed 's/foo/bar/' # replaces only 1st instance in a line sed 's/foo/bar/4' # replaces only 4th instance in a line sed 's/foo/bar/g' # replaces ALL instances in a line sed 's/(.*)foo(.*foo)/1bar2/' # replace the next-to-last case sed 's/(.*)foo/1bar/' # replace only the last case # substitute "foo" with "bar" ONLY for lines which contain "baz" sed '/baz/s/foo/bar/g' # substitute "foo" with "bar" EXCEPT for lines which contain "baz" sed '/baz/!s/foo/bar/g' # change "scarlet" or "ruby" or "puce" to "red" sed 's/scarlet/red/g;s/ruby/red/g;s/puce/red/g' # most seds gsed 's/scarlet|ruby|puce/red/g' # GNU sed only # reverse order of lines (emulates "tac") # bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted sed '1!G;h;$!d' # method 1 sed -n '1!G;h;$p' # method 2 # reverse each character on the line (emulates "rev") sed '/n/!G;s/(.)(.*n)/&21/;//D;s/.//' # join pairs of lines side-by-side (like "paste") sed '$!N;s/n/ /' # if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it sed -e :a -e '/$/N; s/n//; ta' # if a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line # and replace the "=" with a single space sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/n=/ /;ta' -e 'P;D' # add commas to numeric strings, changing "1234567" to "1,234,567" gsed ':a;s/B[0-9]{3}>/,&/;ta' # GNU sed sed -e :a -e 's/(.*[0-9])([0-9]{3})/1,2/;ta' # other seds # add commas to numbers with decimal points and minus signs (GNU sed) gsed -r ':a;s/(^|[^0-9.])([0-9]+)([0-9]{3})/12,3/g;ta' # add a blank line every 5 lines (after lines 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.) gsed '0~5G' # GNU sed only sed 'n;n;n;n;G;' # other seds # SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES: # print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of "head") sed 10q # print first line of file (emulates "head -1") sed q # print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates "tail") sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba' # print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates "tail -2") sed '$!N;$!D' # print the last line of a file (emulates "tail -1") sed '$!d' # method 1 sed -n '$p' # method 2 # print the next-to-the-last line of a file sed -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x # for 1-line files, print blank line sed -e '1{$q;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x # for 1-line files, print the line sed -e '1{$d;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x # for 1-line files, print nothing # print only lines which match regular expression (emulates "grep") sed -n '/regexp/p' # method 1 sed '/regexp/!d' # method 2 # print only lines which do NOT match regexp (emulates "grep -v") sed -n '/regexp/!p' # method 1, corresponds to above sed '/regexp/d' # method 2, simpler syntax # print the line immediately before a regexp, but not the line # containing the regexp sed -n '/regexp/{g;1!p;};h' # print the line immediately after a regexp, but not the line # containing the regexp sed -n '/regexp/{n;p;}' # print 1 line of context before and after regexp, with line number # indicating where the regexp occurred (similar to "grep -A1 -B1") sed -n -e '/regexp/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}' -e h # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order) sed '/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d' # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order) sed '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d' # grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates "egrep") sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d # most seds gsed '/AAA|BBB|CCC/!d' # GNU sed only # print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs) # HHsed v1.5 must insert a 'G;' after 'x;' in the next 3 scripts below sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;' # print paragraph if it contains AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order) sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;/BBB/!d;/CCC/!d' # print paragraph if it contains AAA or BBB or CCC sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d gsed '/./{H;$!d;};x;/AAA|BBB|CCC/b;d' # GNU sed only # print only lines of 65 characters or longer sed -n '/^.{65}/p' # print only lines of less than 65 characters sed -n '/^.{65}/!p' # method 1, corresponds to above sed '/^.{65}/d' # method 2, simpler syntax # print section of file from regular expression to end of file sed -n '/regexp/,$p' # print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive) sed -n '8,12p' # method 1 sed '8,12!d' # method 2 # print line number 52 sed -n '52p' # method 1 sed '52!d' # method 2 sed '52q;d' # method 3, efficient on large files # beginning at line 3, print every 7th line gsed -n '3~7p' # GNU sed only sed -n '3,${p;n;n;n;n;n;n;}' # other seds # print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive) sed -n '/Iowa/,/Montana/p' # case sensitive # SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES: # print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions sed '/Iowa/,/Montana/d' # delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file (emulates "uniq"). # First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted. sed '$!N; /^(.*)n1$/!P; D' # delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file. Beware not to # overflow the buffer size of the hold space, or else use GNU sed. sed -n 'G; s/n/&&/; /^([ -~]*n).*n1/d; s/n//; h; P' # delete all lines except duplicate lines (emulates "uniq -d"). sed '$!N; s/^(.*)n1$/1/; t; D' # delete the first 10 lines of a file sed '1,10d' # delete the last line of a file sed '$d' # delete the last 2 lines of a file sed 'N;$!P;$!D;$d' # delete the last 10 lines of a file sed -e :a -e '$d;N;2,10ba' -e 'P;D' # method 1 sed -n -e :a -e '1,10!{P;N;D;};N;ba' # method 2 # delete every 8th line gsed '0~8d' # GNU sed only sed 'n;n;n;n;n;n;n;d;' # other seds # delete lines matching pattern sed '/pattern/d' # delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as "grep '.' ") sed '/^$/d' # method 1 sed '/./!d' # method 2 # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first; also # deletes all blank lines from top and end of file (emulates "cat -s") sed '/./,/^$/!d' # method 1, allows 0 blanks at top, 1 at EOF sed '/^$/N;/n$/D' # method 2, allows 1 blank at top, 0 at EOF # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first 2: sed '/^$/N;/n$/N;//D' # delete all leading blank lines at top of file sed '/./,$!d' # delete all trailing blank lines at end of file sed -e :a -e '/^n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}' # works on all seds sed -e :a -e '/^n*$/N;/n$/ba' # ditto, except for gsed 3.02.* # delete the last line of each paragraph sed -n '/^$/{p;h;};/./{x;/./p;}' # SPECIAL APPLICATIONS: # remove nroff overstrikes (char, backspace) from man pages. The 'echo' # command may need an -e switch if you use Unix System V or bash shell. sed "s/.`echo b`//g" # double quotes required for Unix environment sed 's/.^H//g' # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V and then Ctrl-H sed 's/.x08//g' # hex expression for sed 1.5, GNU sed, ssed # get Usenet/e-mail message header sed '/^$/q' # deletes everything after first blank line # get Usenet/e-mail message body sed '1,/^$/d' # deletes everything up to first blank line # get Subject header, but remove initial "Subject: " portion sed '/^Subject: */!d; s///;q' # get return address header sed '/^Reply-To:/q; /^From:/h; /./d;g;q' # parse out the address proper. Pulls out the e-mail address by itself # from the 1-line return address header (see preceding script) sed 's/ *(.*)//; s/>.*//; s/.*[:<] *//' # add a leading angle bracket and space to each line (quote a message) sed 's/^/> /' # delete leading angle bracket & space from each line (unquote a message) sed 's/^> //' # remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags) sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba' # extract multi-part uuencoded binaries, removing extraneous header # info, so that only the uuencoded portion remains. Files passed to # sed must be passed in the proper order. Version 1 can be entered # from the command line; version 2 can be made into an executable # Unix shell script. (Modified from a script by Rahul Dhesi.) sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' file1 file2 ... fileX | uudecode # vers. 1 sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' "$@" | uudecode # vers. 2 # sort paragraphs of file alphabetically. Paragraphs are separated by blank # lines. GNU sed uses v for vertical tab, or any unique char will do. sed '/./{H;d;};x;s/n/={NL}=/g' file | sort | sed '1s/={NL}=//;s/={NL}=/n/g' gsed '/./{H;d};x;y/n/v/' file | sort | sed '1s/v//;y/v/n/' # zip up each .TXT file individually, deleting the source file and # setting the name of each .ZIP file to the basename of the .TXT file # (under DOS: the "dir /b" switch returns bare filenames in all caps). echo @echo off >zipup.bat dir /b *.txt | sed "s/^(.*).TXT/pkzip -mo 1 1.TXT/" >>zipup.bat