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Pattern to swap backslashes in particular quoted strings

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.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty
margin-bottom:0;

-1

I'm using sed (actually ssed with extended "-r", so I have access to most any regex functionality I might need) to process files, one change being to convert doubled backslash characters to a single forward slashes inside quoted strings. The problem is that some quoted strings that contain the doubled backslashes should not be converted. All quoted strings I want to target have a certain word "myPhrase" inside the quotes.

So for a file with these two lines:

"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

the output would be:

"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

I've tried various combinations of lookahead like (?=myPhrase) within a search pattern that finds the desired quoted chunks and replaces a capture group (\) with / as the replacement, but all my attempts either replace just the first occurance of the doubled backslashes, or those to the left of myPhrase, etc.

I'm sure there is some combination of lookahead/noncapture/recursion that should do this, but I'm blanking out completely right now.

regex sed

share|improve this question

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Did you try sed '/myPhrase/ s/\\///g'?
  
  – oguz ismail
  Mar 28 at 21:07
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  To use PCRE in ssed, you must use -R option, not -r. That is why lookarounds could not work.
  
  – Wiktor Stribiżew
  Mar 28 at 21:10
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Actually, sed '/myPhrase/s,\,/,g' file > newfile should work for you. It will replace all on a line that contains myPhrase
  
  – Wiktor Stribiżew
  Mar 28 at 21:24
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  ssed -R -e '/myPhrase/ s:\\:/:g;' seems to do the trick for me. It would fail if a line contained both a targeted quoted-string and one to be skipped, but hopefully I don't have that in my processing (I think I'm okay). If I do, I'll take another crack at the lookarounds - I must have thought "ssed -r" got me PCRE features. Thanks.
  
  – YKdvd
  Mar 28 at 21:34
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment
 | 

-1

I'm using sed (actually ssed with extended "-r", so I have access to most any regex functionality I might need) to process files, one change being to convert doubled backslash characters to a single forward slashes inside quoted strings. The problem is that some quoted strings that contain the doubled backslashes should not be converted. All quoted strings I want to target have a certain word "myPhrase" inside the quotes.

So for a file with these two lines:

"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

the output would be:

"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

I've tried various combinations of lookahead like (?=myPhrase) within a search pattern that finds the desired quoted chunks and replaces a capture group (\) with / as the replacement, but all my attempts either replace just the first occurance of the doubled backslashes, or those to the left of myPhrase, etc.

I'm sure there is some combination of lookahead/noncapture/recursion that should do this, but I'm blanking out completely right now.

regex sed

share|improve this question

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Did you try sed '/myPhrase/ s/\\///g'?
  
  – oguz ismail
  Mar 28 at 21:07
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  To use PCRE in ssed, you must use -R option, not -r. That is why lookarounds could not work.
  
  – Wiktor Stribiżew
  Mar 28 at 21:10
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Actually, sed '/myPhrase/s,\,/,g' file > newfile should work for you. It will replace all on a line that contains myPhrase
  
  – Wiktor Stribiżew
  Mar 28 at 21:24
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  ssed -R -e '/myPhrase/ s:\\:/:g;' seems to do the trick for me. It would fail if a line contained both a targeted quoted-string and one to be skipped, but hopefully I don't have that in my processing (I think I'm okay). If I do, I'll take another crack at the lookarounds - I must have thought "ssed -r" got me PCRE features. Thanks.
  
  – YKdvd
  Mar 28 at 21:34
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment
 | 

I'm using sed (actually ssed with extended "-r", so I have access to most any regex functionality I might need) to process files, one change being to convert doubled backslash characters to a single forward slashes inside quoted strings. The problem is that some quoted strings that contain the doubled backslashes should not be converted. All quoted strings I want to target have a certain word "myPhrase" inside the quotes.

So for a file with these two lines:

"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

the output would be:

"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

I've tried various combinations of lookahead like (?=myPhrase) within a search pattern that finds the desired quoted chunks and replaces a capture group (\) with / as the replacement, but all my attempts either replace just the first occurance of the doubled backslashes, or those to the left of myPhrase, etc.

I'm sure there is some combination of lookahead/noncapture/recursion that should do this, but I'm blanking out completely right now.

regex sed

share|improve this question

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this question

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

share|improve this question

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

asked Mar 28 at 21:05

YKdvdYKdvd

422 bronze badges

2 Answers
2

active

oldest

votes

0

With GNU awk for the 3rd arg to match():

$ cat file
"dont change \this" "\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

$ awk 'match($0,/(.*)("[^"]*myPhrase[^"]*")(.*)/,a)gsub(/[\][\]/,"/",a[2]); $0=a[1] a[2] a[3] 1' file
"dont change \this" "//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

0

Try this Perl solution

perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' file

with the below inputs

$ cat ykdvd.txt
"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$ perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' ykdvd.txt
"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

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0

With GNU awk for the 3rd arg to match():

$ cat file
"dont change \this" "\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

$ awk 'match($0,/(.*)("[^"]*myPhrase[^"]*")(.*)/,a)gsub(/[\][\]/,"/",a[2]); $0=a[1] a[2] a[3] 1' file
"dont change \this" "//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

0

With GNU awk for the 3rd arg to match():

$ cat file
"dont change \this" "\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

$ awk 'match($0,/(.*)("[^"]*myPhrase[^"]*")(.*)/,a)gsub(/[\][\]/,"/",a[2]); $0=a[1] a[2] a[3] 1' file
"dont change \this" "//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

With GNU awk for the 3rd arg to match():

$ cat file
"dont change \this" "\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

$ awk 'match($0,/(.*)("[^"]*myPhrase[^"]*")(.*)/,a)gsub(/[\][\]/,"/",a[2]); $0=a[1] a[2] a[3] 1' file
"dont change \this" "//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

$ cat file
"dont change \this" "\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

$ awk 'match($0,/(.*)("[^"]*myPhrase[^"]*")(.*)/,a)gsub(/[\][\]/,"/",a[2]); $0=a[1] a[2] a[3] 1' file
"dont change \this" "//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir" "nor\this"
"Don't change \something me!"

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

answered Mar 28 at 21:27

Ed MortonEd Morton

126k1313 gold badges4949 silver badges111111 bronze badges

0

Try this Perl solution

perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' file

with the below inputs

$ cat ykdvd.txt
"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$ perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' ykdvd.txt
"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

0

Try this Perl solution

perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' file

with the below inputs

$ cat ykdvd.txt
"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$ perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' ykdvd.txt
"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

add a comment
 | 

Try this Perl solution

perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' file

with the below inputs

$ cat ykdvd.txt
"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$ perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' ykdvd.txt
"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' file

$ cat ykdvd.txt
"\\server\dir\myPhrase\subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$ perl -pe ' s"(.+)?"$x=$1; if($x=~m/myPhrase/ ) $x=~s!\\!/!g;sprintf("x22%sx22",$x)ge ' ykdvd.txt
"//server/dir/myPhrase/subdir"
"Don't change \something me!"
Another line

$

share|improve this answer

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges

answered Mar 28 at 21:59

stack0114106stack0114106

5,44622 gold badges55 silver badges2525 bronze badges