How can I add a line break before a set of values going into a bash script?

Question

I've got a set of data piping into a bash script. Here's an example of what that data looks like:

"foo1": "Miscellaneous text",
    "foo2": "More text",
    "foo3": "blah blah blah",
      "foo4": 1635.0,
      "foo5": 0.0,
"foo1": "Miscellaneous text that is different",
    "foo2": "More text1231231",
    "foo3": "blah blah blah234234",
      "foo4": 1633425.0,
      "foo5": 0.0,
"foo1": "Miscellaneous text abc123",
    "foo2": "More text122121",
    "foo3": "blah blah blah414124",
      "foo4": 163235.0,
      "foo5": 1.0,
"foo1": "More Miscellaneous text",
    "foo2": "asdfasdfaMore text",
    "foo3": "blah blahadsfasdf blah",
      "foo4": 1635232.0,
      "foo5": 0.0,

I want to add a line break character (\n) to precede "foo1". In other words, change the data to read:

    \n"foo1": "Miscellaneous text",
        "foo2": "More text",
        "foo3": "blah blah blah",
          "foo4": 1635.0,
          "foo5": 0.0,
    \n"foo1": "Miscellaneous text that is different",
        "foo2": "More text1231231",
        "foo3": "blah blah blah234234",
          "foo4": 1633425.0,
          "foo5": 0.0,
    \n"foo1": "Miscellaneous text abc123",
        "foo2": "More text122121",
        "foo3": "blah blah blah414124",
          "foo4": 163235.0,
          "foo5": 1.0,
    \n"foo1": "More Miscellaneous text",
        "foo2": "asdfasdfaMore text",
        "foo3": "blah blahadsfasdf blah",
          "foo4": 1635232.0,
          "foo5": 0.0,

I thought it would be possible to do with sed/awk but I'm not so sure as the values for foo1 can/will change.

Any ideas?

So you want to add a line break at the beginning of every line that doesn't start with a space/tab? — scai, Aug 19 '12 at 16:10
@scai I suppose that would work but I was originally wanting to add a line break at the beginning of every line that begins with `"foo1":` — Mike B, Aug 19 '12 at 16:11
I thought the "foo1": can/will change? If not, it is really easy. See my answer. — scai, Aug 19 '12 at 16:29
foo1 stays the same. The value for foo1 is what changes. For example, it could be "Miscellaneous text". It could later be "Miscellaneous text that is different" — Mike B, Aug 19 '12 at 16:33

scai · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-20T04:37:25.350

2

This will add a '\n' for every line starting with "foo":

sed 's/^"foo1":/\n&/'

edited Aug 20 '12 at 04:37

answered Aug 19 '12 at 16:28

scai

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1

There's a typo: "foo" should be "foo1". The best way to prevent such typos: `sed 's/^"foo1":/\n&/'` – Dennis Williamson Aug 20 '12 at 00:51

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 20 '12 at 05:06

awk solutions:

$ awk '{ sub(/^"foo1"/, "\\n&") }; 1'
$ awk '{ if (/^"foo1"/) { print "\\n" $0 } else { print $0 } }'

Since you said:

I want to add a line break character (\n) to precede "foo1"

So I escaped the backslash to insert a \n character instead of a new line.

How can I add a line break before a set of values going into a bash script?

2 Answers2