How to correctly use quotes in sed?

Question

For example I want to change

"'this text'"
"that text"
'other_text'

into

'this text'
"that text"
'other_text'

I tried

sed -e 's/^"\'/"/g'

but my quoting must be off.

Ubuntu.

Probably because you forgot How to escape a single quote ? – don_crissti Sep 17 '15 at 18:38 — don_crissti, Sep 17 '15 at 18:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 17 '15 at 18:26

1

With GNU sed:

sed 's|\x22\x27|\x27|;s|\x27\x22|\x27|' file

Output:

'this text'
"that text"
'other_text'

See: http://www.asciitable.com/

answered Sep 17 '15 at 18:26

Cyrus

12,309

1

that is so Ugly – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 17 '15 at 18:28
1

You gave me an idea. If you put those ugly numbers into shell variables, then you can use names i.e. ${single_quote} ${double_quote}, this is readable but more characters. – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 17 '15 at 18:41
@richard: nice idea. – Cyrus Sep 17 '15 at 18:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 22 '19 at 09:24

1

You can not use escape \ in a '' quote. Therefore put everything in a "" quote and escape the "s. e.g. "s/^\"'/'/g"

Alternatively end the '' quote, do a \', then start the '' quote again e.g. 's/^"'\''/'\''/g'

Also if you are easily confused by the \s and /s, then note you do not have to use /s as delimiters. You can use any character, e.g. "s%^\"'%'%g"

This only does the first quote at the beginning of line, the bit you seem to be struggling on.

edited Feb 22 '19 at 09:24

zagrimsan

766

answered Sep 17 '15 at 18:31

ctrl-alt-delor

27,993

actually its the second part that I'm struggling on – Michael Durrant Sep 17 '15 at 19:36

tachomi · Answer 3 · 2015-09-17T19:08:18.613

0

Try this line

sed -e "s/^\"'/\'/g" -e "s/'\"$/\'/g" file

Instead of enclosing the sed expression between ' ', do it between " " so you can escape with \ the " "

e.g.

@tachomi:~$ echo "\"'this text'\""
"'this text'"
@tachomi:~$ echo "\"'this text'\"" | sed -e "s/^\"'/\'/g" -e "s/'\"$/\'/g" 
'this text'

e.g.2

@tachomi:~$ cat file.txt
"'this text'"
"that text"
'other_text'
@tachomi:~$  sed -e "s/^\"'/\'/g" -e "s/'\"$/\'/g" file.txt
'this text'
"that text"
'other_text'

edited Sep 17 '15 at 19:08

answered Sep 17 '15 at 18:36

tachomi

7,592

1

You can do multiple -e in one sed e.g. sed -e "s/^\"'/\'/g" -e "s/'\"$/\'/g" file – ctrl-alt-delor Sep 17 '15 at 18:48
first part of answer works but second part messes up output, unexpected token messages. – Michael Durrant Sep 17 '15 at 18:50
@MichaelDurrant Try with the update – tachomi Sep 17 '15 at 18:52
@MichaelDurrant could you please provide the output – tachomi Sep 17 '15 at 19:06

How to correctly use quotes in sed?

3 Answers3