SED help needed

DriveMeCrazy · 11-20-2006, 09:45 PM

Hi guys,

some problems here.

I have got a path that I want to replace and substitute using sed.
My command is this:
# echo /var/adm/messages | sed 's/[A-Za-z0-9]*\///g'
# messages

The returned results is "messages" which is what I want.

However, it will encountered problem if the path contains special chars like _, -, etc.
E.g. pathname is /hostname_home/mymessages

How can I specified in the command,
so that sed will be able to replace anything that is before the last "/" occurence?

Thanks in advance.

gilead · 11-20-2006, 09:57 PM

I don't remember whether the '/' needs to be escaped with square brackets, but searching for the following should work:

Code:

sed -e 's/[^\/]*\///g'

Edit: The '*' makes the search string redundant. On my box, the following works fine:

Code:

$ echo /hostname_home/mymessages | sed -e 's/.*\///g'
mymessages

Couldn't you use basename instead? For example:

Code:

basename /hostname_home/mymessages

DriveMeCrazy · 11-20-2006, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilead

I don't remember whether the '/' needs to be escaped with square brackets, but searching for the following should work:

Code:

sed -e 's/[^\/]*\///g'

Edit: The '*' makes the search string redundant. On my box, the following works fine:

Code:

$ echo /hostname_home/mymessages | sed -e 's/.*\///g'
mymessages

Couldn't you use basename instead? For example:

Code:

basename /hostname_home/mymessages

Thanks... ya think basename shld be easier.

Anyway just figured out another way...
sed 's/[A-Za-z0-9._-]*\///g'