I have ./cpptest.sh to which I am passing a command line parameter For e.g. $./testcps.sh /srv/repository/Software/Wind_1.0.2/

The above command line parameter, is stored in variable $1 when I echo $1, the output is correct (the path)

Actual issue... There is another file let's say abc.properties file. In this file there is a key-value field something like location.1=stg_area. I want to replace the 'stg_area' with the value stored in $1 (the path) so that the substitution looks like location.1=/srv/repository/Software/Wind_1.0.2/

Now, to achieve this, I am tried all option below with sed and none worked

sed -i "s/stg_area/$1/" /srv/ppc/abc.properties //output is sed: -e expression #1, char 17: unknown option to `s'

sed -i 's/stg_area/'"$1'"/' /srv/ppc/abc.properties //output is sed: -e expression #1, char 18: unknown option to `s'

sed -i s/stg_area/$1/ /srv/ppc/abc.properties //output is sed: -e expression #1, char 17: unknown option to `s'

I think I have tried all possible ways... Any answer on this is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

CodePudding user response：

You know that sed is using / as a special separator in the command s/pattern/replacement/, right? You've used it yourself in the question.

So obviously there's a problem when you have a replacement string containing /, like yours does.

As the documentation says:

The / characters may be uniformly replaced by any other single character within any given s command. The / character (or whatever other character is used in its stead) can appear in the regexp or replacement only if it is preceded by a \ character.

So the two available solutions are:

1. use a different separator for the s command, such as

   s#stg_area#$1#
   

   (although you still need to check there are no # characters in the replacement string)

2. sanitize the replacement string so it doesn't contain any special characters (either /, or sequences like \1, or anything else sed treats as special), for example by escaping them with \

   sanitized=$(sed 's#/#\\/#g' <<< $1)
   

   (and then used $sanitized instead of $1 your sed script)

CodePudding user response：

Many thanks @Useless (the person who helped me). Your suggestions of using set -x and using alternate separators solved the issue.

Summary:

when you store a variable with a path info like $1=/srv/repository/Software/wind and want to substitute the this variable in your sed command then use alternate separators like #. Now this to avoid messing up with compiler and giving clear instructions.

initially my sed command was like sed -i "s/stg_area/$1/" /srv/ppc/abc.properties

I replaced it with sed -i "s#stg_area#$1#" /srv/ppc/abc.properties and this worked like a charm.