replacement with sed: replace pattern with multiple lines

Hcman · 11-17-2004, 05:42 PM

I'd like to write a bash script that reads through an html template and inserts a random fortune (or any piece of text) into this template. I've been trying to do this with sed and I can get simple stuff like a date to work. Multiple lines don't seem to work however.

This works:

Code:

sed "s/DATE/`date`/" test.html > tmp.html

This doesn't work (for the most part):

Code:

sed "s/FORTUNE/`fortune -s`/" test.html > tmp.html

n.b. a oneliner works but not multiple line quotes.

After googling this it does seem sed is the tool for the job so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Arjan

ToniT · 11-17-2004, 06:18 PM

Hmm..
I would use m4 to the same trick.
(or JSP/PHP oneliner, if available)

A sample usage of m4:
File foo.m4:

Code:

<html>
<body>
This is a document..<p>
A fortune:
<pre>esyscmd(fortune -s)</pre>
</body>
</html>

and to generate webpage:

Code:

m4 foo.m4 > foo.html

Try googling for "m4 write html" for some more documentation.

ToniT · 11-17-2004, 06:30 PM

... to do the thing with sed:

Code:

sed s/FORTUNE/"`fortune -s | sed 's/$/\\\\n/' | tr -d '\n'`"/ test.html > tmp.html

(see that there are three different types of quotes there).

Hcman · 11-18-2004, 03:38 AM

Thanks! That works.
I'd been trying but never came close to that solution HA!

Arjan

Cedrik · 11-18-2004, 06:23 AM

You could use perl too :

Code:

perl -pe 's/FORTUNE/`fortune`/e' test.html > tmp.html

Hcman · 11-18-2004, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cedrik
You could use perl too :

Code:

perl -pe 's/FORTUNE/`fortune`/e' test.html > tmp.html

No way, that is almost too easy :-)
Thanks for this suggestion, I hadn't though of perl.

Arjan