CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashsedawk
Andy K
Andy K

Reputation: 5064

replace a string before the semi colon

I have several files, which begins like this :

unit,s_adj,partner,stk_flow,indic,geo\time;aaaa;2222;

time,s_adj,partner,stk_flow,lolo,geo\time;bbb;2222;

I want to replace the first occurence before the semi-colon with that new occurence YEAR

The desired output would be:

YEAR;aaaa;2222;

YEAR;bbb;2222;

I tried with the following command line but it does not seem to do what I want

awk -F ";" 'NR==1 {$1=""; print "year"}' input_file

Your suggestions are welcomed.

Best.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 119

Answers (2)

William Pursell
William Pursell

Reputation: 212504

You can also do:

awk '{$1="YEAR"}1' OFS=\; FS=\; input-file

Upvotes: 0

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195209

try this:

sed 's/[^;]*/YEAR/' file

if you only want the substitution happen on the 1st line:

sed '1s/[^;]*/YEAR/' file

Upvotes: 2

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