Hi,
im wirting the bash script to change the text from configuration file of httpd.conf, In a configuration file there are many comment similar to configuration. when i change the text using sed its change the commented section tooo. how to overcome form this .
eg: -
$ cat test.txt
#User mysql
User mysql


(i want to change User mysql to User apache, not the #User mysql)

This tells sed to not change the lines matching a hash at the beginning of the line. The other lines are changed instead.

1 members found this post helpful.

hey thanx a lot colucix but its echo the changes, original file didn't changed so i use

$ sed -i '/^#/!s/User */User apache/' test.txt(here i used wild card * )
$ cat test.txt
#User mysql
User apachemysql

(its adding but not changing the mysql to apache)

I usually omit to mention the -i option, unless specifically request, for safety. What if someone less experienced than you apply a command without testing to multiple files and scramble them all?!

Regarding your command, you're using the wildcard as the shell's file matching pattern. Instead in regular expressions it means zero or more occurrences of the preceding character. Therefore using
you match a string with User followed by zero or more blank spaces. You have to use the following
to match User followed by a blank space and any number (zero included) of any character. Beware that in this case it matches anything till the end of the line:

thanx colucix thanku very much