File Manipulation help..

theemptyone · 05-27-2011, 11:59 AM

I have to manipulate several hundred servers via a satelite script push.. and i'm trying to figure out how to remove two lines from inittab.

Does anyone have any idea on how to verify if the line is there.. then cut the correct line from the inittab with bash?

My thought is to cat -n | grep <what i need deleted>.. cut the number.. then find a way to delete that line from the file..

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TobiSGD · 05-27-2011, 12:15 PM

If your line is so unique that you can grep it without getting unwanted results, it is no problem to delete that. Try it like this:

Code:

grep -v <what you need deleted> /etc/inittab > new_inittab

For more information have a look at

Code:

man grep

MTK358 · 05-27-2011, 01:57 PM

You can also use sed.

Cut out a line 5:

Code:

sed '5d'

Cut out lines 5-10:

Code:

sed '5,10d'

Cut out a line containing a regex:

Code:

sed '/pattern/d'

You can also use sed's -i option to edit the file "in-place" (i.e. rewrite the original file with the edited version).