How to remove a pattern's line and N lines after it?

Question

I'm writing a shell script which edits a docker-compose.yml file (running on MacOS).

I'm trying to delete a block which looks like so and is located at the end of the file:

  microservice-itai-ms:
    image: ms-itai-ms:master
    environment:
      NODE_ENV: 'development'
      NPM_TOKEN: 'SECRET'
    ports:
      - "3022:3000"
    depends_on:
      - "redis-cluster"

I'm running the following command in order to remove this block:

sed -i.bak '/.*itai-ms.*/,+9d' docker-compose.yml

9 is the number of lines including the pattern's line.

When I run the above command, I get the following error:

echo docker-compose.yml | sed -e '/.*itai-ms.*/,+9d'
sed: 1: "/.*itai-ms.*/,+9d
": expected context address

What am I doing wrong?

`pattern,+n` is a GNU extension, are you sure your sed is GNU sed? — oguz ismail, Oct 27 '19 at 16:45
See: [sed use: expected context address](https://stackoverflow.com/q/26124650/3776858) — Cyrus, Oct 27 '19 at 16:46

Beta · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-27T17:04:42.940

1

If "itai-ms" really doesn't appear before the block, and the block really is at the end of the file, you can do this:

sed -i.bak '/itai-ms/,$d' docker-compose.yml

EDIT:

Roughly translated, the command is "from /itai-ms/ to $ [that is, from the first line containing "itai-ms" to the last line of the file] execute d [that is, delete the line]"

And if you want to pass "itai-ms" as a variable (call it X), try this:

"/$X/,\$d"

Note the double quotes and the escaped $.

edited Oct 27 '19 at 17:04

answered Oct 27 '19 at 16:50

Beta

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Also, if itai-ms is a variable, how shall I write it? thanks – Itai Ganot Oct 27 '19 at 16:58
1

This might work, too: `sed -i.bak -e '/itai-ms/{N;N;N;N;N;N;N;N;d}' docker-compose.yml` – Cyrus Oct 27 '19 at 17:01
@Cyrus: I thought of that, (and it does work,) but `,$d` is shorter. – Beta Oct 27 '19 at 17:06
1

@Cyrus: ...But on second thought, your solution fits the *title* of the question better. – Beta Oct 27 '19 at 19:58

How to remove a pattern's line and N lines after it?

1 Answers1