replacing tabs with single tab in sed

Question

I want to replace all multiple tabs with a single tab with sed. I am trying to use

sed 's:\t+:\t:' .\text.CSV > newtext.csv

but this doesn't seem to work

If I open in sublime and replace by regex all \t+ to \t it works properly

what is wrong with my sed?

Also, if I replace tabs with a comma with

sed 's:\t\t*:,:g' text.CSV > newtext.csv

I get this kind of line

264262360,20030826,200308,2003,2003.6466,BUS,EMPLOYER,,,,,,BUS,,, ,,,,,,,,,,0,051,051,05,1,3.4,12,2,12,5.24866163479182,1

Remember `+` means one or more so can also be written `\t\t*` — potong, Aug 26 '13 at 06:33
If `\t` isn't working, try using [Ctrl]-[v] [Tab] ([see this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6392249/how-to-enter-a-tab-char-on-command-line)) if working in a a *nix terminal. Copy-pasting a tab character might work, but in my terminal tabs were replaced by four spaces. — Joel Purra, Nov 05 '14 at 09:22

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 26 '13 at 06:45

20

You can also use tr to replace multiple tabs with a single one:

tr -s '\t' '\t' < inputfile > outfile

The -s option squeezes repeats:

-s, --squeeze-repeats

      replace each input sequence of a repeated character that is
      listed in SET1 with a single occurrence of that character

answered Aug 26 '13 at 06:45

devnull

2

NOte that `tr -s '\t'` is enough to squeeze, the second `'\t'` is not necessary. – fedorqui Oct 23 '14 at 09:20

falsetru · Answer 2 · 2013-08-26T06:34:43.393

8

Use -r option and g flag:

sed -r 's:\t+:\t:g' text.CSV > newtext.csv

-r to make + to work.

g flag to replace all occurrences.

UPDATE

If your sed does not support -r option, try following instead:

sed 's:\t\t*:\t:g' text.CSV > newtext.csv

edited Aug 26 '13 at 06:34

answered Aug 26 '13 at 06:28

falsetru

@NickGinanto, What OS do you use? – falsetru Aug 26 '13 at 06:33
I am trying on win7 with powershell. Also tried this with cygwin – Nick Ginanto Aug 26 '13 at 06:35
@NickGinanto, Where did you download the `sed`? – falsetru Aug 26 '13 at 06:39
I didn't, I happily found it :) where should I download it? – Nick Ginanto Aug 26 '13 at 06:39
@NickGinanto, In my Windows 7 box, there's no `sed` found. – falsetru Aug 26 '13 at 06:40
maybe it takes it from the git installation maybe? – Nick Ginanto Aug 26 '13 at 06:41
@NickGinanto, I installed `git`, .. using `sed` included their, I get the expected result. See [a screenshot](http://i.imgur.com/5W3lxMO.png). – falsetru Aug 26 '13 at 06:49
@NickGinanto, What is the output of `sed --version`? In my box, it gives `GNU sed version 4.2.1 ....`. – falsetru Aug 26 '13 at 06:52
GNU sed version 4.2.1 – Nick Ginanto Aug 26 '13 at 06:53

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 23 '14 at 08:46

0

you could also use

sed "s/\t\+/\t\g" test.csv >> newtest.csv

answered Oct 23 '14 at 08:46

anim

3 Answers3