looking for simple scripted text-editing help

win32sux · 10-28-2006, 08:16 PM

hi... i have an HTML section of text for a country drop-down menu... it looks like this (trimmed example):

Code:

<option value="AF" >AFGHANISTAN</option>
<option value="AL" >ALBANIA</option>
<option value="DZ" >ALGERIA</option>
<option value="AD" >ANDORRA</option>
<option value="AO" >ANGOLA</option>
etc... etc... etc...

i was wondering if anyone could show me a shell command to change the option value to be the complete name of the country, instead of the two-letter tag... in other words, that the end-result looks like:

Code:

<option value="AFGHANISTAN" >AFGHANISTAN</option>
<option value="ALBANIA" >ALBANIA</option>
<option value="ALGERIA" >ALGERIA</option>
<option value="ANDORRA" >ANDORRA</option>
<option value="ANGOLA" >ANGOLA</option>
etc... etc... etc...

keep in mind that some of the countries have spaces in them, like CAYMAN ISLANDS or UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, etc...

your help is greatly appreciated...

druuna · 10-29-2006, 04:33 AM

Hi,

sed 's%=".*" >\(.*\)</%="\1" >\1</%' infile

Sample run:

Code:

$ sed 's%=".*" >\(.*\)</%="\1" >\1</%' infile 
<option value="AFGHANISTAN" >AFGHANISTAN</option>
<option value="ALBANIA" >ALBANIA</option>
<option value="ALGERIA" >ALGERIA</option>
<option value="ANDORRA" >ANDORRA</option>
<option value="ANGOLA" >ANGOLA</option>
<option value="CAYMAN ISLANDS" >CAYMAN ISLANDS</option>
<option value="UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" >UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</option>

In case you don't understand the sed command, here's a little breakdown:

You are not bound to the / as separator. I used the % because there are forward slashes in the infile.
I also used backreferencing, the string found between \( and \) in the search part can be used in the replace part as \1.

=".*" >\(.*\)</ => search part.
="\1" >\1</%' => replace part.

An example:
If this <option value="AL" >ALBANIA</option> is your input line, the search part will 'cut out' ="AL" >ALBANIA</, ALBANIA (the \(.*\) part) can be represented as \1 in the replace part.

If anything is unclear, just ask.

win32sux · 10-29-2006, 04:52 AM

thank you so much drunna!! it worked flawlessly!!