Hi Folks,

I have just started learning "sed" and I am a complete newbie. I have simple task to be accomplished.

I have a VMware configuration file in which there is following line:

ide1:0.fileName = "D:\isos\test\test1234-abcd.iso"

In my scenario the name of the iso keeps on changing like test1234-abcd.iso, test12346789-abcd.iso, test1234-abcdefg.iso, test123xyz.iso bla bla bla. But in all cases "test" will remain as it is and only the contents between "test" & ".iso" will change

So I want to write a generalized sed script to replace the previous iso name with the new iso name. For example to change
to
I used following command:
It works and the changed contents are displayed on the output screen. But they are not getting written on the file itself.

Why so?

Second question: How can I use wild charchters to make it generalized ?for eg:
The above command is not working :-(

For ur first question,

sed doesn't modify the contents of original file.
it needs to be redirected to another file.
say,
u can achieve modifying the contents of ur test.vmx file thro' 2 steps

(i) sed -e 's/test*iso/test-abc-xyz.iso/' test.vmx > test.vmx.swp
(ii) mv test.vmx.swp test.vmx


for ur second question,
The regular expression is not used properly.

sed 's/test[0-9]*\-[a-z]*\.iso/linux/g' < filename >filename1

would now replace ur filename[eg:test1234-abc.iso] with "linux" everywhere.
U can try with ur filename instead.

1) Actually, newer sed can edit-in-place. See the -i[SUFFIX] option.

2) * in regular expressions means 0 or more of the preceeding character. So you need to indicate what character you want to quantify. In your case, you want any character, and this is dot (.). So, you could use:

sed -i.bak 's/test.*\.iso/test.NEW.iso/' test.vmx

Thanks gaynut .....your command worked like a charm....also thanks to Mr. C. for your suggestion....

You could have included all valid characters that you want to test for, which is what gaynut was trying to do, however in this case.

Assuming valid entries are:

test123-abc.iso
test12abc.iso
test12a4c.iso
test.iso

gaynut's suggestion would only have found the first entry.

You could use:
sed -i 's/test[-0-9a-z].iso/test0123-new.iso/' test.vmx

Or to create a backup copy:
sed -i.bak 's/test[-0-9a-z].iso/test0123-new.iso/' test.vmx

Or test for any number of any character as per Mr. C.

The problem with Mr. C.'s suggestion is that it is too inclusive, it would also match:

testfile=alternative.iso
test with new iso

sometimes, the simplest things can be done without too much regular expressions

FS is a regular expression, degenerate or not! :-)

Who is the degenerate? The regular expression or ghostdog74?

I like the awk solution. I'd just add the double quotes at the end of the line, as in the original file:

Well, me of course! Bah hah ha hah!

Gaynuts spelling?

lol. well, i did mention "without too much regular expressions"

Guys....Stop fighting.....All it maters is that it resolved my problem within seconds....Special thanks to "Disillusionist"...for making the command more easy & generalized ........All cheers to LQ...LQ rocks man...

Paragkalra - we're all having a good time. You might be misunderstanding the difference between "ribbing" and "fighting".

I made a self-deprecating joke about myself (being a degenerate); this invites the others to have a good time too.

There's no hostility here, at least I don't feel any.

Yeah, I was ribbing too... I know ghostdog for a long time, Mr.C. for a while, I felt I could do a little joke. ghostdog himself once told me to not be too serious... this is the good spirit at LQ. Enjoy it

I have known colucix and Mr.C (from another forum) for a long time too and we are not fighting, so no worries. by the way, i sure hope that your path do not coincidentally have "test" and "iso" together like in
ide1:0.fileName = "D:\isos\test12blahiso\test1234-abcd.iso".