CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshellsed
user3282923
user3282923

Reputation: 11

How to wrap words in single quotes using sed script?

I am curious how can I do the following thing with sed: I need to wrap certain two words in single quotes in each line. For example, the following text:

I did it like this:

cat file |sed "s/[^ ][^ ]*/'&'/g"

result:

'the-first-word' '-firstPrameter' 'value' '-secondParameter' 'value' '-thirdParameter' 'value' '-fourthParameter' 'value'

But it is wrapping every word.

It should be like this, skip the first word and wrap only parameter and value:

the-first-word '-firstPrameter value' '-secondParameter value' '-thirdParameter value' '-fourthParameter value'

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4006

Answers (2)

John1024
John1024

Reputation: 113934

In your example, the first word is at the start of the line. Thus, if we quote all words that have a space in front of them, then we will quote all but the first:

sed "s/ \([^ ]\+\)/ '\\1'/g" file
the-first-word '-firstPrameter' 'value' '-secondParameter' 'value' '-thirdParameter' 'value' '-fourthParameter' 'value'

If your sed supports the -r flag (GNU), then we can remove some of those backslashes:

sed -r "s/ ([^ ]+)/ '\\1'/g" file

On Mac OSX, replace -r with -E.

Upvotes: 1

Amit
Amit

Reputation: 20506

sed "s/ \([^ ]* [^ ]*\)/ '\\1'/g" file



$cat file.txt
the-first-word -firstPrameter value -secondParameter value -thirdParameter value -fourthParameter value

$sed "s/ \([^ ]* [^ ]*\)/ '\\1'/g" file.txt
the-first-word '-firstPrameter value' '-secondParameter value' '-thirdParameter value' '-fourthParameter value'

Upvotes: 1

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