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Accepted
Josef Klimuk
Asked: 2018-08-23 04:18:31 +0800 CST

Cutting a string using sed

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There is a string, which contains numbers and letters in its name. The symbol '_' divides different parts of the string.

X23X_1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y_YYX2_XXYY

I want to have only second, third and forth parts:

1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y

Using cut one can do:

echo 'X23X_1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y_YYX2_XXYY' | cut -d'_' -f2,3,4

How to do it with sed?

command-line sed

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    One way would be to use capture groups:

    echo 'X23X_1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y_YYX2_XXYY' |
  sed -E s/'([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_.*/\2_\3_\4/'
1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y

    For delimited data, awk is often simpler:

    echo 'X23X_1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y_YYX2_XXYY' |
  awk -F_ 'BEGIN{OFS=FS} {print $2,$3,$4}'
1XY4_XXXX_Y12Y
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