sed how to

[Roger G. Vincent]

I need to modify a file in the following manner:
- remove all blank lines
- change the last occurance of a comma (,) to a left paren

any ideas

[Lasse Knudsen · Accepted solution]

cat file | grep -v '^$' | sed -e 's/,$/(/'

[Rainer_1]

sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/,$/(/'

[Bruce Regittko]

Hi,

Is the comma the last character of the line? If so, then the first two suggestions will work fine. If you mean the last comma, but not necessarily the last character, try the following:

sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/,[^,]*$/(/'

Hope this helps,

Bruce

[Lasse Knudsen]

Roger, the other 2 posts definetely desirve 10pts for their smooth and "true hack" solutions.

[Roger G. Vincent]

This was close however, I want to change the last occurance of a comma (,) in the file to a paren NOT each occurance of a comma to a paren.

[John Palmer]

Hi,

To change the last occurrence of ',' try the following:-

sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/\(.*\),\(.*\)/\1(\2/'

Hope the backslashes appear! there's enough of them.

Regards,
John

[CHRIS ANORUO]

Try: cat file |sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/\(.*\),\(.*\)/\1(\2/' > newfile

[Roger G. Vincent]

The commas are killing me. I have a file with multiple lines which end with a comma (,). I need to change the very last comma of the file to a right paren ")". I am sorry for the confusion, however, I stated the question improperly (or at least it was unclear). I am new to this point value stuff and I appreciate all responses and will get the points right soon.

[CHRIS ANORUO]

Hi Rogers,

Check this very well and run into another file as indicated: cat filename |sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/\(.*\),\(.*\)/\1)\2/' > newfilename