sed problem

[Michael Treadwell_1]

I have a problem where I would like to replace / with tabs. I am using

sed s/[/]//g

but hitting the tab key does not work. Any ideas why not? Or how else I might do this?
Thanks!

[Robin Wakefield]

Hi Michael,

I think you might just be missing quotes. This works for me:

sed 's+/+ +g' filename

where I just pressed that tab key between the 2nd pair of "+" chars.

rgds, Robin

[Christian Gebhardt]

Hi

simply press the TAB-Button instead of

Chris

[Michael Treadwell_1]

Robin & Christian,

I am hitting the actual tab key and it does not work, either in my example or in Robin's.

[Hai Nguyen_1]

Michael,

Hitting the tab key should work. Try this below:

# echo "field1/field2" | sed 's:/::'

Hai

[Richard Hood]

You can do the substitution with vi.

vi
~
~
~
~
~
:g/\///s///gp


This will globally change the "/" to a

You will need to :x! to save and exit vi

[Robin Wakefield]

Hi Michael,

What does this show:

echo a/b | sed 's+/+ +g' | od -c

I see:

# echo a/b | sed 's+/+ +g' | od -c
0000000 a \t b \n
0000004

rgds, Robin

[Richard Hood]

global line should read

:g/\//s///gp


I had one too many "/"'s sorry

[S.K. Chan]

This works for me (ie using the tab key).
# cat myfile | sed 's/\///g'

[Richard Hood]

you can also try to put the ctrl-v before the ,tab - on the sed line -- either way works for me. as well..

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Robin's syntax works fine. Don't copy-and-paste it. Try replicating the TAB character both with the tab key and by pressing "control", "v" and then "I". This can be done at commandline and should act identically to pressing the tab key. In fact, you should see your cursor move.

Regards!

...JRF...

[John Meissner]

sed 's /\//g'

[John Meissner]

sed 's /\///g'

[John Meissner]

sorry for the almost the same double post.... i caught my type-o just as I hit send on the first one.

[Michael Treadwell_1]

Robin, I get the following:

[immpact:immpacts]:~/bin
bash-2.05$ echo a/b | sed 's+/+ +g' | od -c

0000000 a b \n
0000004

[immpact:immpacts]:~/bin
bash-2.05$

James, when I type ctrl-v then I, I get an I on the line.

Everyone else,
Anything requiring the tab key does not seem to work. At the console, the tab key doesn't do anything. Might this be a shell issue? The account I'm working under uses bash.

[Michael Treadwell_1]

Duh! It's a shell issue of some sort. As the user under bash, no tab key. As root under sh, all of your examples work!

Anyone have a clue what could be different in the enviroments to cause tab not to work? If it matters, this is a k class running 10.20.

[John Poff]

Hi,

I got this example to work in my bash shell [on my Linux box]:

sed 's#/#\t#g'

The slashes were a little confusing in the substitution syntax, so I replaced them with the '#' sign. For the tab character, I used the \t expression.

JP

[John Poff]

Oops. Scratch my previous post. It doesn't work. But I did get it to work with the control-v method.

JP

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again):

John P: The '\t' to represent a tab character doesn't work in all 'sed' versions. It does in gnu's 'sed' by not the HP version, for instance.

When using the "control, v, I" key sequence to generate a tab, press "ctrl", then press "v" and release that key, and finally while holding down the "ctrl" key, press "I". You should not see a visible "I" unless is appears as "^I". In my case, blank space appears and the cursor moves.

Regards!

...JRF...

[John Meissner]

I did have this problem (with shells) between by linux box (bash) and my Unix server (ksh). I was developting a script on my linux box to eventually run on my unix server.... i couldn't get it to work in the bash prompt but as soon as i tried in on my ksh shell everything worked.