? on editing a file

steve_f60 · 09-20-2005, 04:56 PM

Hello,

I am trying to delele a line of text from a preferences file with no success. I tried using sed inside my script but to get the line deleted from the file I would have to redirect the file to a new output file, which breaks my symbolic links

Is there someway to use an editor to do this from a command line and keep the integrity of the file as is?

Thanks,

Steve

bigrigdriver · 09-20-2005, 05:20 PM

Are you trying to edit the file logged in as user, when the permissions require root authority? If so, open a term window and su to root, then edit using vim, emacs, or some other text editor.

mickyg · 09-20-2005, 05:20 PM

I think either emacs or vi should be able to do this. I personally prefer emacs but try both.

Tinkster · 09-20-2005, 05:21 PM

sed -i should do the word in-place if you have the right
version (and of course permissions on the file).

That said, removing the original, and moving the destination
file to the old name should make the symlinks usable again,
too ... not sure how you would break them?

Cheers,
Tink

Matir · 09-20-2005, 05:22 PM

He's apparently using a script.

You do need to pipe output from SED to a new file, but that could be done with a temp file, like so:

Code:

TMPFILE=`mktemp`
cat infile | sed 's/ABC/XYZ/g' > $TMPFILE
cat $TMPFILE > infile #preserve symlink
rm $TMPFILE

Something along those lines should do it for you.