remove "-" (dash) from file

aurelio26 · 09-15-2004, 06:40 PM

I want to remove - (dash) from file using sed and replace with empty space.

I tried this command, but nothing happend.

sed -e 's/\-/ /' file > file2

Help !!!

Tinkster · 09-15-2004, 07:14 PM

Is the - in the file, or in the file-name? :)

If it's in the name you should keep the -
and start replacing all your spaces with
something more sensible, like - or _ ;)

Cheers,
Tink

CroMagnon · 09-15-2004, 07:26 PM

Are you sure nothing happened? file2 was created, right? I'll bet if you look closely, you'll find the first - on each line was changed to a space in file2. You need to put a 'g' at the end to tell sed to do the replace everywhere, instead of just the first match it finds. So:

sed -e 's/-/ /g' file > file2

should do what you want (the extra backslash you added isn't necessary, but won't hurt either).

CroMagnon · 09-15-2004, 07:30 PM

Oo, never thought you might have meant the filename instead of the contents. sed works on what's in the file, not the filename... although you could use sed to accomplish that:

mv my-big-long-file "`echo my-big-long-file | sed -e 's/-/ /g'`"

but it would be easier to use the rename command in that case. Check 'man rename'.

aurelio26 · 09-16-2004, 11:32 AM

Thanks for response guys.

g at the end of sed line solved problem.
File was so huge that each time I did
sed -e 's/\-/ /' file1 > file2

I couldn't notice that only first of them changed from - to space.

sed -e 's/\-/ /g' file1 > file2
saved my vacation!!!!!!

Thanks CroMagnon!!!