sed errors, is there another way?

[dwygant]

what do you do when sed works, but only half the time?

i am writing a script that will replace some text in some config files but i am noticing the sed sucks! it only works about half the time and the other half i get obscure errors. i'm tired of trying to track down the problem with sed.

is there another way of replacing a specific string in a config file without using the sed command?

[wje_lf]

Sure. Learn Perl. It's at least as bug-free as sed is.

Learn Perl, and you win. Show us with a concrete example how sed is misbehaving, and we'll show you how you're wrong, and everybody wins.

Your choice.

[ghostdog74]

is there another way of replacing a specific string in a config file without using the sed command?

show your sed code, as well as the input file.
a variety of tools such as Python, awk, even the bash shell has in built string replacement, lastly but not least, Perl.
in awk,

awk '{ gsub("old,"new")}{print}' file

however, it also very depends on how your input file looks like.

[dwygant]

it is easy to get frustrated when a deadline approaches and you are stuck in the mud.

i may try and use awk, but i really need to learn perl too.

i am trying to use sed in a script to replace some configuration settings in four different conf files.

it seems to work, sort of. The four files are /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/postfix/main.cf, /etc/MailScanner/spam.assassin.prefs.conf, and /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf

it is the MailScanner.conf file that has been giving me trouble.

to make matters worse, i'm doing this all within a virtual machine. the errors don't appear in the original version but show up after i copy the machine. from the original machine my code seems to do exactly what i want.

here is the error that I get when i run it in the copied version of the virtual machine.

sed: -e expression #1, char 24: unterminated `s' command
sed: -e expression #1, char 28: unterminated `s' command

of course when i cat the file that was supposed to be changed it is empty.

my code looks thus...

cat /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf | sed s/ORGNAME/$OName/ > MailScanner.1.conf.tmp
cp MailScanner.1.conf.tmp /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf

rm MailScanner.1.conf.tmp

cat /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf | sed s/ORGLONGNAME/$LName/ > MailScanner.2.conf.tmp
cp MailScanner.2.conf.tmp /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf

rm MailScanner.2.conf.tmp

cat /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf | sed s/SITENAME/$OSite/ > MailScanner.3.conf.tmp
cp MailScanner.3.conf.tmp /etc/MailScanner/MailScanner.conf

rm MailScanner.3.conf.tmp




i've tried doing this using only one temp file as i did with the other files but that did not seem to work. this code actually does work, sort of...

i sure do appreciate any help you can give...

[dwygant]

oh you know what... i just noticed something. only in my MailScanner.conf file do i ask for an input that could have a space in it. when the ORGLONGNAME is queried the response may contain spaces, such as foo bar llc. the spaces may be my whole problem.

when i have tested the script i just entered in a string of text with out spaces in order to save time. but after i copy the machine i have attempted to put in genuine values that contain a space or two.

do you think i'm on the right track here?

more importantly, is there a way to deal with this?

[wje_lf]

sed s/ORGLONGNAME/$LName/      # bad
sed "s/ORGLONGNAME/$LName/"    # good

Hope this helps.

[dwygant]

sed s/ORGLONGNAME/$LName/      # bad
sed "s/ORGLONGNAME/$LName/"    # good

Hope this helps.

Yes!

me bad, you good!

i sort of figured quotes would be involved here somehow.

thank you very much for your time.