AIX sed use space as delimiter

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

I am trying to do this with one small tweak. I would also like to use a space as a delimiter.

sed 's/[,.!?]  */\
/g' file

This is what my file looks like.

server1, server2, server3
server4 server5 server6

I would like it to look like this.

server1
server2
server3
server4 
server5 
server6

This was some of my ideas for a solution.

sed 's/[,.!? ]  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6
sed 's/[,.!?  ]  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6
sed 's/[,.!? ""]  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6
sed 's/[,.!? " "]  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6
sed 's/[,.!? '']  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6
sed 's/[,.!? ' ']  */\
/g' file
sed: 0602-404 Function s/[,.!?  cannot be parsed.
2

[RIGHT][/RIGHT]Including a space in the [ ] is okay but there is also (at least) one following space.
So either have

/[,.!? ] */

i.e. a following space is not required; this would also cover

server1,server2,server3

Or have

/[,.!?]\{0,1\}  */

i.e. a [ ] character may occur 0 or 1 times, followed by (at least) one space.

3

So two spaces vs one space makes a big difference it seems? Do you know why it adds an extra space?

sed 's/[,.!? ]   */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3
server4 server5 server6

sed 's/[,.!? ] */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3

server4
server5
server6

Do you know this adds an extra space?

sed 's/[,.!?]\{0,1\}  */\
/g' file
server1
server2
server3

server4
server5
server6
4

You mean the extra line?
I guess there is a space character after the server3 ; this extra space is converted to an extra newline.

1 Like
5

This?

printf "%s\n" $( tr -s ' ,.!?' ' ' <file_name)
server1
server2
server3
server4
server5
server6

tr turns all the expected delimiters to spaces and printf prints one per line.

Andrew

6

In tr the number of characters in arg1 should match the number in arg2 - otherwise the behavior is not possible.
Convert directly to newline:

tr -s ' ,!' '\n\n\n' < filename
7

Okay, sorry about that. I've gotten used to the GNU tr which does allow that behaviour. Now I've checked with Solaris I see your're right.

Andrew