I have a file with a list of words like:
FIRST_WORD abc
FIRST_WORD(1) bcd
FIRST_WORD(2) def
SECOND_WORD gh
THIRD_WORD jiu
THIRD_WORD(1) lom
...
and I want to remove the (i), when it is present, to obtain:
FIRST_WORD abc
FIRST_WORD bcd
FIRST_WORD def
SECOND_WORD gh
THIRD_WORD jiu
THIRD_WORD lom
...
You can get it:
test="123456"
echo ${test:3}
Output:
456
echo ${test:0:3} and you will get 123
Try this.
sed 's/([0-9])//g' file
Global replacement of all digits strings found inside parenthesis using sed:
$ sed 's/([0-9]\+)//g' file
FIRST_WORD abc
FIRST_WORD bcd
FIRST_WORD def
SECOND_WORD gh
THIRD_WORD jiu
THIRD_WORD lom
# Save the changes back to the file
$ sed -i 's/([0-9]\+)//g' file
Removing the first 3 characters using sed:
$ sed 's/^...//' file
ST_WORD abc
ST_WORD(1) bcd
ST_WORD(2) def
OND_WORD gh
RD_WORD jiu
RD_WORD(1) lom
This might work for you (GNU sed):
sed -r '$!N;s/^((\S+).*\n\2)\([^)]*\)/\1/;P;D' file
However it might be overkill, if:
sed 's/([0-9]\+)//' file
is suffice.
Here is a pure bash implementation:
while read -r a b; do
echo "${a%(*)}" "$b"
done < input.txt
I'd generally go with sed for replacing in files as it is built specifically for that, but in case someone needs to do this operation inside a longer bash script, you can also use bash's search and replace syntax ${var//search/replace}.
while read -r line; do
echo "${line//(*)/}"
done < ./in.txt
(i)appears elsewhere it should not be replaced, or will it never appear other than as per examples?