ASCII file. Replacing '[TEX]' with '$'.

stf92 · 04-17-2012, 01:05 PM

Hi: I have an ascii file in which I want to replace all occurrences of the string [TEX] with the string $. How can I do it. Using vim with :s/old/new doesn't work in this case.

anomie · 04-17-2012, 01:14 PM

Assuming, from the single quotes, that you mean those both as literals.

You're going to need to escape some regex characters to do this. Example with sed(1):

Code:

$ echo 'foo [TEX] bar' | sed 's/\[TEX\]/\$/'
foo $ bar

stf92 · 04-17-2012, 01:23 PM

I did

Code:

semoi@darkstar:~$ echo 'omni.txt [TEX] bar' | sed 's/\[TEX\]/\$/'
bash: $: command not found

where omni.txt is the file to modify, and got what you can see. What is bar?

stf92 · 04-17-2012, 02:26 PM

I had made a syntax error. I did this:

Code:

semoi@darkstar:~$ cat omni.txt | sed 's/\[TEX\]/\$/'

But only the first occurrence of the string in every line gets replaced.

colucix · 04-17-2012, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stf92

I had made a syntax error. I did this:

Code:

semoi@darkstar:~$ cat omni.txt | sed 's/\[TEX\]/\$/'

But only the first occurrence of the string in every line gets replaced.

Try to add the g modifier to the s command:

Code:

sed 's/\[TEX\]/\$/g' omni.txt

An aside note: you don't need to use cat, since sed accepts file names as arguments.

Nermal · 04-17-2012, 02:56 PM

in vim:

Code:

:%s/\[TEX\]/\$//g

stf92 · 04-17-2012, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nermal

in vim:

Code:

:%s/\[TEX\]/\$//g

That is exactly what I did. Thanks. And thanks colucix.