Re: how do I use super-sed's /S option?

On 2017-01-14 17:58, [email protected] [sed-users] wrote:

>  I'm trying to use super-sed's perl regex /S  flag, but can't get it to work at all. This would be a very handy tool, if only I could understand how it's used! For example, I expect the following command will match and replace the pattern which spans across a newline to be replaced with Xs:
>  echo "(123) 456-7890\n(456) 567-9050" | sed -R -e "s/78.*?5/x/S" So, I am expecting this output:
>  (123) 456-78XX XXXXXXX67-9050 Instead I get (no match):
>  (123) 456-7890 (212) 567-9050

Maybe you meant "echo -e"?

Without -e (the "\n" just means "n", and)
it could work out like this:

$ echo "(123) 456-7890\n(456) 567-9050" |sed -e "s/78[^5]*5/x/"
(123) 456-x6) 567-9050


Your example output looks quite different.

http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=XY+Problem
What are you trying to achieve?

-- Ruud


Perl example that does a bit more:

$ echo -e "(123) 456-7890\n(456) 567-9050" |
perl -0pe 's/(78)(.*?)5/$1.("x"x length $2)/egs'

(123) 456-78xxxxx6) 567-9050