CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashsed
Kiran Mohan
Kiran Mohan

Reputation: 2996

sed: unterminated address regex

From what I read about sed, multiple instructions within braces should work.

The second sed command works fine.
But why would the first sed command below fail? 

echo "-------"

sed -e '/UNCOMMENT THIS/,/jmx/ { \
    /foo/d \
    /test/d \
}' \
test.txt

echo "-------"

sed -e '/UNCOMMENT THIS/,/jmx/ { /foo/d; /test/d }' \
test.txt

echo "-------"

Test.txt 

  <!--  To enable authentication security checks, uncomment the following security domain name -->
  <!--UNCOMMENT THIS
  foo
  test
  <property name="securityDomain">jmx-console</property>
  -->

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1646

Answers (1)

willeM_ Van Onsem
willeM_ Van Onsem

Reputation: 476528

Between single quotes (') the backslashes are interpreted as "real backslashes", so the escape characters are not interpreted".

You can resolve this by simply using a new line without the backslash in the quote environment:

sed -e '/UNCOMMENT THIS/,/jmx/ {
    /foo/d
    /test/d
}' \
 test.txt

As you see, you need to provide a backslash at the end of the command, to ensure test.txt is grouped with the command call. But bash automatically groups content between two single quotes.

Upvotes: 1

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