CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxsed
Shivaji Dutta
Shivaji Dutta

Reputation: 41

Updating a properties files using "sed" for a complex string

I am trying to do an automated build. There is a properties file in the format

#gpudb.conf

license_key =

I would like to write a wrapper script that I call the main script passing the license key as a command line option.

installer.sh <<license_key_value>>

I would like the installer.sh to replace the config file

sudo -H -u gpudb bash -c "sed -i 's/\(license_key\s*=\s*\).*/\1$1/' /opt/gpudb/core/etc/gpudb.conf"

$1 seems to work with simple string. If I have a large license file with lots of characters I get the following error.

sed: -e expression #1, char 40: unknown option to `s'

Upvotes: 0

Views: 65

Answers (1)

hek2mgl
hek2mgl

Reputation: 158100

Looks like the key may contain a forward slash which would break the sed command because it is using it as a delimiter. Probably you may find a delimiter that will never be part of a key and use it as the delimiter in sed? Like this:

sed 's_SEARCH_REPLACE_' # I'm _ as the delimiter

Otherwise I would recommend to use awk because it can handle fixed strings:

awk -v key="${key}" '/license_key/{print "license_key =", key;next}1' < file > file.tmp
mv file.tmp file

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions