I have an alias table and I need to make a global change due to a new mail server. I think I can do it with sed, but don't know how.

a sample line look like this
skrutua06: sanhuda_krutua06@firstclass.choate.edu

I need to change the format to firstinitialLASTNAME
and change the mail server like this
skrutua06: skrutua06@newserver.choate.edu

How can I strip the characters before the underscore and replace it with just the first initial. I know how to simply change the server name after the @ sign. that part was easy. there will be a variable length string for each first name but they will all have a space or whitespace character after the semicolon.

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

This should work:

sed -e 's/ \([a-z]\)[a-z]*_/ \1/' -e 's/firstclass/newserver/' <infile>

The first substitution takes everything from the first space to the underscore and replaces it with the content of \([a-z]\), this is done with the \1 in the replace part.

With the -e option you can string sed statement together.

The second one should look familiar.

Hope this helps.

This might work also...

Thanks, you saved me lots of time.
It works perfectly.
Tom

Hi,

@thulley: You're welcome

@homey: Your given command deletes every character before, and including, the underscore. It does not leave the first character of that string, as desired by the OP.