Hi,

I'm having some troubles with trying to use a variable within the sed command in a BASH Script...

Here is essentially what I'm trying to do:

choice="c1 c2 c3 c4"
for i in $choice
do
cat myfile | sed -e '$is/OFF/ ON/' > tmpfile
cp tmpfile myfile
done


**NOTE: The value contained in $i is the line number sed needs to perform the substitute on...

Basically, i'm trying to do sed -d '1s/OFF/ ON/' , but have the 1 replaced with the dynamic variable that sets the line number.

I've tried quite a few ways now, I'm sure I'm just a syntax thing, I've tried double quoting, single quoting, a combo of the two, parathesises, but am not having any luck here.


TIA


Jeff

try using double quotes and you can do away with the cat. Use this syntax : sed <pattern> <file>

Hmmmmm.....

a=1

sed "s/$a/new/" filename replaces the value of a with new

sed 's/$a/new/ filename replaces the literal "$a" with new

sed '$as/old/new/' filename at the end of the file, append the string "s/old/new"

sed "$as/old/new/" filename results in an error

sed ""$a"s/old/new/" filename WORKS!!!! (But why?)


Also---in the OP, the loop gives values of c1, c2, c3....etc. These won't work in the sed expression---eg what is "sed 'c1s/old/new/' filename" going to do?

Actually, the c1, c2, c3, c4 are just names I used here for reference purpose.

c1 = choice 1
c2 = choice 2
c3 = choice 3
c4 = choice 4

The values of each choice are my selections from a `dialog` checklist that I need to run a function for. The function is to update an options_table that turns a value ON or OFF.

The checklist has 25 choices, The values I grab are the quoted line numbers (eg. "1" , "2" , etc...) that I need to edit.

then, I actually run the for loop to update the values in an options_table:

here is the function:

up_opts()
{
choice=`cat $tempfile`
cp -f $TABTPT $TABLE

for i in $choice
do
c=`echo $i | sed /\"/s/\"//g`
sed ""$c"s/OFF/ ON/" $TABLE
done
}


If this helps. The sed command you posted, allows me to update the values as it displays on the screen, but it does NOT actually change the file permanently, just the screen output is modified. I can get around this by sending output to a tmpfile, then copying it back to the original file, but was hoping there is a way I can this in one line for efficiency purposes...

Just to note, the reason it only updates values from OFF to ON is because I copy table_template to the original with all OFF values, and based on the selections that are chosen, I rebuild the file from there, updating values to ON by running a for loop on my chosen selections.

I apologize if any of my wording doesn't sound quite right, I'm still learning BASH and am trying to explain things as best as I can.


Jeff

To change a file "in place":
sed -i '...stuff...' filename

To write to a new file:
sed '...stuff...' filename > newfilename

Really good SED tutorial here: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html