CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexbashreplaceseddouble-quotes
Cyril Cros
Cyril Cros

Reputation: 27

Use sed to edit a value within quotes

xI have a text in this form:

foo1   bar1   xId "myId1";yId "something"
foo2   bar2   xId "myId2";yId "something"
foo2   bar2   yId "something";xId "myId3"

How can I use sed to edit the myId field? I want to append a value before it, like this:

foo1   bar1   xId "prefix_myId1";yId "something";
foo2   bar2   xId "prefix_myId2";yId "something";
foo2   bar2   yId "something";xId "prefix_myId2";

I cannot use awk because xId is not always in the same place in my file. However, it is guaranteed that the line is in this format: someStuff xId "myContent"; someOtherStuff

Thanks a lot, I can use 

sed 's/\(.*xId \)[^ ]*\(;.*\)/ a \1"newValue"\2/'

but it replaces the contents by newValue instead of prefixing it...

The capture group should make use of xId

EDITED TO SHOW TRICKY PART, THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENTS

Upvotes: 0

Views: 45

Answers (2)

NeronLeVelu
NeronLeVelu

Reputation: 10039

sed 's/\([[:space:];]xId[[:space:]]\{1,\}"\)/\1prefix_/' YourFile

will prefix your string content based on your structure assuming

  • xld is not the first field without space before
  • there is no xld " in string before your field name

Upvotes: 2

hek2mgl
hek2mgl

Reputation: 158250

With sed:

 sed -r 's/(xId\s*[^"]*")([^"]*)/\1prefix_\2/' input.txt

I'm using two capturing groups: ([^"]*") catches everything after the xId before the next opening " including them. ([^"]*) selects the content between the ".

In the replacement pattern I reassemble the groups and inject the term prefix_.

Upvotes: 1

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