regex inside a sed command

Question

I am having a little problem with putting a regex inside a sed command, this is my code:

RAW_LIST_B=`echo $RAW_LIST_A | sed s/[0-9a-f]{8} / /g`

And i get this error :

sed: -e expression #1, char 13: unterminated `s' command

I am not sure how to quote the [0-9a-f]{8} so that it removes all 8 digit hex numbers and trailing space from RAW_LIST_A

Thanks,

Answer 1

Do this:

RAW_LIST_B=`echo $RAW_LIST_A | sed 's/[0-9a-f]\{8\} / /g'`

Since you did not quote the argument to sed, the shell splitted it into three arguments: s/[0-9a-f]{8}, / and /g before passing it to sed.

Also, note the backslashes to escape the curly brackets.

Answer 2

You should enclose sed experssion into a quotes so it will be one string parameter passed to sed by shell

RAW_LIST_B=`echo $RAW_LIST_A | sed "s/[0-9a-f]\{8\} //g"`

Sample output:

$ echo "hello a5a5a5a6 world" | sed "s/[0-9a-f]\{8\} //g"
hello world