replace string to asterisk bash

Question

I am trying to get from user a path as an input.
The user will enter a specific path for specific application:

script.sh /var/log/dbhome_1/md5

I've wanted to convert the number of directory (in that case - 1) to * (asterisk). later on, the script will do some logic on this path.

When i'm trying sed on the input, i'm stuck with the number -

echo "/var/log/dbhome_1/md5" | sed "s/dbhome_*/dbhome_\*/g"

and the input will be -

/var/log/dbhome_*1/md5

I know that i have some problems with the asterisk wildcard and as a char... maybe regex will help here?

captcha · Answer 1 · 2013-06-30T22:48:36.230

3

Code for GNU sed:

sed "s#1/#\*/#"

.

$echo "/var/log/dbhome_1/md5" | sed "s#1/#\*/#"
"/var/log/dbhome_*/md5"

Or more general:

sed "s#[0-9]\+/#\*/#"

.

$echo "/var/log/dbhome_1234567890/md5" | sed "s#[0-9]\+/#\*/#"
"/var/log/dbhome_*/md5"

edited Jun 30 '13 at 22:48

answered Jun 30 '13 at 22:37

captcha

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Casimir et Hippolyte · Answer 2 · 2013-06-30T19:52:17.997

2

use this instead:

echo "/var/log/dbhome_1/md5" | sed "s/dbhome_[0-9]\+/dbhome_\*/g"

[0-9] is a character class that contains all digits

Thus [0-9]\+ matches one or more digits

edited Jun 30 '13 at 19:52

answered Jun 30 '13 at 19:45

Casimir et Hippolyte

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[0-9] will cover all numbers ? I don't know if the number is 1 or even 13294 .. Thank you! – Sagi Jun 30 '13 at 19:49
@user2160077: Try <°))))))>! – Casimir et Hippolyte Jun 30 '13 at 19:50

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 30 '13 at 21:52

If your script is in bash (which I assume when I see the tag, but I also doubt it when I see its name script.sh which seems to have the wrong extension for a bash script), you might as well use pure bash stuff: /var/log/dbhome_1/md5 will very likely be in positional parameter $1, and what you want will be achieved by:

echo "${1//dbhome_+([[:digit:]])/dbhome_*}"

If this seems to fail, it's probably because your extglob shell optional behavior is turned off. In this case, just turn it on with

shopt -s extglob

Demo:

$ shopt -s extglob
$ a=/var/log/dbhome_1234567/md5
$ echo "${a//dbhome_+([[:digit:]])/dbhome_*}"
/var/log/dbhome_*/md5
$

Done!

replace string to asterisk bash

3 Answers3