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pasmon
Asked: 2020-02-02 06:57:07 +0800 CST

using sed to find, compare and replace text

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I have a text in a single file

Quiz

Worker(Thomas) works in .......... 
Worker(Alfred) works in .......... 
Worker(Albert) works in ..........

Answer

Worker(Thomas) works for company(google) 
Worker(Alfred) works for company(apple)
Worker(Albert) works for company(Microsoft)

I wish to replace the empty dotted lines in "Quiz" from information given in "Answer" by using sed based text search, matching and replacement.

sed

1 Answers

  1. I suggest using awk for this task. Assuming you have two separate files Quiz and Answerin the same directory, cd into that directory and run the following command in the terminal:

    awk 'NR==FNR{a[$1]=$4; next}{$4=a[$1]; print}' > Answered_Quiz Answer Quiz

    A new file named Answered_Quiz will be created in the same directory and it will contain the desired result.

    If all the lines are in one file, you can split it first:

    run the following command replacing FileName with your text file name:

    awk '$4 ~ /(^[\.]+$)/' > Quiz FileName

    to make the Quiz file.

    then run the following command replacing FileName with your text file name:

    awk '$4 !~ /(^[\.]+$)/' > Answer FileName

    to get the Answer file. Your original file will not be affected

    Or if all the lines are in one file and you prefer not to split the file, use the following code in a script file (or you can just copy and paste it in the terminal and press Enter) from within the same directory:

    #!/bin/bash

pat1="(^[\.]+$)"


while read f1 f2 f3 f4 f5
                do

                        if [[ "$f4" =~ $pat1 ]]

                        then
                        # change Quiz in the following line with your source file name
                        a4=$(awk -v ff1="$f1" '$4 !~ /(^[\.]+$)/ && $1 == ff1 {print $4}' "Quiz")

                        echo "$f1 $f2 $f3 $a4" >> "Answered_Quiz" 
                        fi
                # change Quiz in the following line with your source file name
                done < "Quiz"

    A new file named Answered_Quiz will be created in the same directory and it will contain the desired result.

    Best of luck

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