Hi there
I'm new to this forum:
I was wondering if someone could help me figure out a task

In the second field, change 'f' to female and 'm' to male globally. Display the first 9 lines.

Use 2 sed statements one piped to another.
Note use of single quotes in examples.

This was my output

[sjim7@hills ~]$ grep -k2 |sed 's/m/male/g' famous.data | sed 's/f/female/g' | head -n 9
grep: invalid option -- 'k'
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
Try `grep --help' for more information.
01 male maleotzart amaleadeous 25 2nd 94233
02 male guthrie woody 23 2nd 94223
03 female simaleone nina 27 2nd 94112
04 male lennon john 29 2nd 94221
05 female harris emalemaleylou 20 2nd 94222
06 male malearley bob 22 2nd 94112
07 female malearley rita 26 2nd 94212
08 female warwick dione 26 2nd 94222
09 male prine john 35 3rd 94321

How would i type it to focus on the second column to change the m to males, and f to females , instead of changing every letter in each column that has a m to male , thanks

Could you tell me the reason why you posted this three times?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lp-4175431592/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175431591/

Think about how the m that you want to substitute with male differs from all the other m's in a line. Think about what seperates words.

grep -k2 at the beginning has no effect at all, and also it does not work (grep: invalid option -- 'k')
You would also need to understand the g at the and of the sed commands, probably that should be changed. Also you can use only one sed command instead of two invocations. You can try awk also, if it was more convenient for you.

would you be able to do it in awk ?
im not sure how to do it in awk, i was trying to see if i could use a sort function on the command line im currently using to only change the 2nd column m to males. To change all the m to male and f to female, without having all the other m's in different columns switch to male too

---------- Post added 10-11-12 at 12:59 AM ----------

the thing that separate words ??

Yes, I can do it using awk, perl, sed, c or probably only bash, that is not a problem. But I would rather see you can do it yourself.
Can you explain how did you find the original command you tried?

Hey Pan, i just typed out the command from the notes i had

[sjim7@hills ~]$ grep -k2 |sed 's/m/male/g' famous.data | sed 's/f/female/g' | head -n 9
grep: invalid option -- 'k'
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
Try `grep --help' for more information.
01 male maleotzart amaleadeous 25 2nd 94233
02 male guthrie woody 23 2nd 94223
03 female simaleone nina 27 2nd 94112
04 male lennon john 29 2nd 94221
05 female harris emalemaleylou 20 2nd 94222
06 male malearley bob 22 2nd 94112
07 female malearley rita 26 2nd 94212
08 female warwick dione 26 2nd 94222
09 male prine john 35 3rd 94321

I'm trying to only search for the m/f so i can change the m to male and f to female in column 2 only
Can you please help me, I've been trying to figure this out for 2 days already !!

and this is the output i get

01 male maleotzart amaleadeous 25 2nd 94233
02 male guthrie woody 23 2nd 94223
03 female simaleone nina 27 2nd 94112
04 male lennon john 29 2nd 94221
05 female harris emalemaleylou 20 2nd 94222
06 male malearley bob 22 2nd 94112
07 female malearley rita 26 2nd 94212
08 female warwick dione 26 2nd 94222
09 male prine john 35 3rd 94321

its suppose to be this :
01 male motzart amadeous 25 2nd 94233
02 male guthrie woody 23 2nd 94223
03 female simone nina 27 2nd 94112
04 male lennon john 29 2nd 94221
05 female harris emmylou 20 2nd 94222
06 male marley bob 22 2nd 94112
07 female marley rita 26 2nd 94212
08 female warwick dione 26 2nd 94222
09 male prine john 35 3rd 94321

I most of the time refrain answering peoples questions when they don't answer mine as well. As I do now and continue to enjoy my space.

1 members found this post helpful.

Just match the lettr m followed by whitespace

sed 's/m\s/male/g' or sed 's/m /male /g'

Please post your thread in only one forum. Posting a single thread in the most relevant forum will make it easier for members to help you and will keep the discussion in one place. This thread is being closed because it is a duplicate of;
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lp-4175431592/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175431591/

You should stay with the original: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175431591/