need help with using sed command twice on one file

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 01:53 PM

ok so what i have is a list of words 6 to a line

aaaa aaaa aaa aaa aaa aaaa im trying to use the sed command to insert a comma in between each word and at the end of the last one

aaaa, aaa, aaaa, aaaa, aaaa, aaaa,

the last line of the variable does not have 6 words
what i have so far is this

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]\+/,/g s/$\/,/g'`

it dosent work though i originally started off with

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]\+/,/g'

this puts a comma inbetween them but takes out the space and dosent put a comma at the end of the line..

basicaly what i needed to know is how i could you multiple sed commands to fix this

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 01:56 PM

whoops i made a mistake above!! i have the space figured out i just needed to know how to use multiple sed commands on one line

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'`

this gives me

a, abed, accede, acceded, ace, aced
ad, add, added, b, baa, baaed
babe, bad, bade, be, bead, beaded
bed, bedded, bee, beef, beefed, c
cab, cabbed, cad, cede, ceded, d
dab, dabbed, dad, dead, deaf, deb

what i need is to use another sed to search for the end of the line and add a comma... but i dont know how to add another sed command to the one i have

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 02:07 PM

ive tried this

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'
-e 's/$/,/g'`

but i get an error

./word1.sh: line 27: -e: command not found

hemlockz · 05-11-2009, 02:08 PM

Can you use '[ ]|$' to match a space or end of line?

Quote:

Originally Posted by xskycamefalling

whoops i made a mistake above!! i have the space figured out i just needed to know how to use multiple sed commands on one line

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'`

this gives me

a, abed, accede, acceded, ace, aced
ad, add, added, b, baa, baaed
babe, bad, bade, be, bead, beaded
bed, bedded, bee, beef, beefed, c
cab, cabbed, cad, cede, ceded, d
dab, dabbed, dad, dead, deaf, deb

what i need is to use another sed to search for the end of the line and add a comma... but i dont know how to add another sed command to the one i have

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 02:21 PM

wouldent that match one or the other?
i need it to match both
im new at this sorry if i sound super retarded lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemlockz

Can you use '[ ]|$' to match a space or end of line?

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemlockz

Can you use '[ ]|$' to match a space or end of line?

also what would the syntax have to look like wouldent ther have to be () around it? if i remember correctly dont u need the () to use the | "or"
ive tried just adding it and it dosent work

ive also tried adding ([ ]|$) that dosent work either

thanks for the response though!

hemlockz · 05-11-2009, 02:46 PM

hmmm.. if they are all words you could do this?

sed 's\/([A-Za-z]*/)\&,\g'

puts a comma after every group of letters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xskycamefalling

also what would the syntax have to look like wouldent ther have to be () around it? if i remember correctly dont u need the () to use the | "or"
ive tried just adding it and it dosent work

ive also tried adding ([ ]|$) that dosent work either

thanks for the response though!

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 02:49 PM

ok so i figured out a way to do what i was asking but im still wondering if its possible to use the sed command twice on the one line
this is what i figured out though

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'`
done=`echo "$words" | sed -e 's/$/,/g'`
echo "$done"

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemlockz

hmmm.. if they are all words you could do this?

sed 's\/([A-Za-z]*/)\&,\g'

puts a comma after every group of letters.

good call that would also solve the problem... but the question still lies could i if i wanted to use multiple sed commands?
pointless i guess but still

thanks for your help hemlockz

hemlockz · 05-11-2009, 02:57 PM

You can pipe it together. It is considered sloppy to do it that way because it will run 2 sed processes when one could have been used. But sometimes it is not possible to write it in one expression so you have to pipe two sed commands together... is that what you mean?

Quote:

Originally Posted by xskycamefalling

ok so i figured out a way to do what i was asking but im still wondering if its possible to use the sed command twice on the one line
this is what i figured out though

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'`
done=`echo "$words" | sed -e 's/$/,/g'`
echo "$done"

xskycamefalling · 05-11-2009, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hemlockz

You can pipe it together. It is considered sloppy to do it that way because it will run 2 sed processes when one could have been used. But sometimes it is not possible to write it in one expression so you have to pipe two sed commands together... is that what you mean?

ya kinda and i actually tried that but it was only giving me the output of the last sed process...

also ur syntax was inccorect on the above

Quote:

sed 's\/([A-Za-z]*/)\&,\g'

it should look like

Code:

sed -e 's/\([a-zA-Z]*\)/&,/g'`

but the idea was right and it does work

thanks again

hemlockz · 05-11-2009, 03:37 PM

Cool, no worries I am just a newb at this and happened to be working with sed today too. Good learning experience. Thats weird that the pipe didn't work for you... I jsut did:

cat words|sed 's_ _, _g'|sed 's_$_,_'

(I prefer to use _ as the delimiter because I am too dyslexic with forwardslash and backslash!)

ntubski · 05-12-2009, 02:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xskycamefalling

what i have so far is this

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]\+/,/g s/$\/,/g'`

it dosent work...

sed uses semicolon for compound commands:

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]\+/,/g;s/$\/,/g'`

Quote:

Originally Posted by xskycamefalling

ive tried this

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g'
-e 's/$/,/g'`

but i get an error

./word1.sh: line 27: -e: command not found

This fails because you put a new line before the -e so it starts a new command, you can use a backslash to escape the newline:

Code:

words=`cat /usr/share/dict/words |grep "^[$list]*$" | xargs -n 6 echo | sed -e 's/[ ]/, /g' \
-e 's/$/,/g'`