Remove numbers within brackets only

Question

How can I remove numbers within brackets only? For example, I have the following text:

This is 14 April [988] text..

I would like to remove the [988] and leave 14 intact.

What i've tried so far:

sed 's@\[[0-9]\]@@g'

It's funny how people don't get this especially today. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12921217/group-more-than-one-regular-expression-in-the-same-command/12921253#12921253 — , Oct 16 '12 at 19:16

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '12 at 19:20

4

You can use:

On Mac:

sed -E 's@\[[0-9]+\]@@g'

On Linux:

sed -r 's@\[[0-9]+\]@@g'

answered Oct 16 '12 at 19:20

anubhava

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+1 for you, best answer so far. But come on, don't downvote me choking on `sed`'s flags! – Oct 16 '12 at 19:22
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@H2CO3: I haven't downvoted any answer (I very rarely down vote any answer, I merely comment to let people know) – anubhava Oct 16 '12 at 19:24

score 3 · Answer 2 · 2012-10-16T19:24:44.417

3

You need to enable repeating (multiple) numerical characters in order to get this work - as it stands, your regex will remove only single-digit numbers. If you want numbers composed of at least one (one or more) numerical characters, try

sed -E 's/\[[0-9]+\]//g'

edited Oct 16 '12 at 19:24

answered Oct 16 '12 at 19:15

@anubhava probably the text to be replaced contains slashes? What if you try with your original `@` delimiter? (I just use a slash because I'm used to it.) – Oct 16 '12 at 19:20
Original text is: `'This is 14 April [988] text'` – anubhava Oct 16 '12 at 19:21
Let's see after edit: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4960980/Screen%20Shot%202012-10-16%20at%209.26.03%20PM.png – Oct 16 '12 at 19:26

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 16 '12 at 19:15

1

This should work (added the escaped +)

sed 's@\[[0-9]\+\]@@g'

answered Oct 16 '12 at 19:15

doubleDown

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sed by default uses basic regular expression (BRE) which requires `\+` for it to mean "1 or more". I just tried and it works – doubleDown Oct 16 '12 at 19:20
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see anubhava's answer, IMHO it's the best one here. – Oct 16 '12 at 19:21
@doubleDown ERE's interpret the escaped + character as a literal `+`. – Oct 16 '12 at 19:24
Mac's sed doesn't support `+` at all by default? – doubleDown Oct 16 '12 at 19:24
@doubleDown: On Mac it needs `-E` switch (i.e. `-r` on Linux) – anubhava Oct 16 '12 at 19:26
@anubhava: Interesting. On Linux it works without any switches as long as you escape it. Mac probably has some old version of sed. – doubleDown Oct 16 '12 at 19:27
Yes I know it works on Linux without `-r` switch as well with `\+`. – anubhava Oct 16 '12 at 19:28

Remove numbers within brackets only

3 Answers3