CODEWITHSUNDEEP
shellreplacesed
niyasc
niyasc

Reputation: 4490

Find and Replace for Complex String

I have a input file containing a sentence like 

typedef void * __builtin_va_list;

I want to replace this with

typedef void ** __builtin_va_list;

I tried using sed as follows

sed 's/void * __builtin_va_list/void ** __builtin_va_list/g' FILE.txt

But it is not working. I think it is due to involvement of *'s in expression. How can we handle this kind of scenario?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 52

Answers (2)

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 785196

You can use this search/replace with captured groups and back-references:

sed -r 's/(void \*)( __builtin_va_list)/\1*\2/g' file
typedef void ** __builtin_va_list;

Also remember that * needs to be escaped since it is special regex meta character.

Upvotes: 1

Hellmar Becker
Hellmar Becker

Reputation: 2972

You need to escape the stars:

sed 's/void \* __builtin_va_list/void \*\* __builtin_va_list/g' FILE.txt

Upvotes: 1

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