How to remove a tagged block of text in a file?

Posted by EmpireJones on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by EmpireJones
Published on 2010-05-02T08:11:55Z Indexed on 2010/05/02 8:19 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 301

Filed under:

sed

|

grep

|

bash

|

linux

|

scripting

How can I remove all instances of tagged blocks of text in a file with sed, grep, or another program?

If I have a file which contains:

random
text
// START TEXT
internal
text
// END TEXT
more
random
// START TEXT
asdf
// END TEXT
text

how can I remove all blocks of text within the start/end lines, produce the following?

random
text
more
random
text

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about sed

sed + RE , want to ignore remarked line using sed

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to replace the a string with the word string as the following example down , but if a string exist also after comment then a string will replaced too In which way I can add to the sed command the irregular exp that ignore from the #. [root@localhost tmp]# more test a b aa bb #a #b #aa #bb [root@localhost… >>> More
script to search and replace deprecated functions

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am using the following script to search and replace the deprecated functions in a file with the newer ones. 5 for strFile in `ls deprecated_functions_search_and_replace.txt ` 6 do 7 sed "s/ereg_replace[^\(]*(\([^,]*\),/preg_replace\1('#'.\2.'#',/g" $strFile > temp_file 8 … >>> More
Footer not stretching 100% when horizontally scrolled

as seen on Pro Webmasters - Search for 'Pro Webmasters'
I have a footer which is set to 100% width, but if i size the window smaller so a horizontal scrollbar appears, using the scrollbar shows whitespace to the right of the footer ... its not spanned 100% of the page, just the viewport. <!doctype html> <html lang="en" class="no-js"> <head> … >>> More
What does this regex mean and why

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
$ sed "s/\(^[a-z,0-9]*\)\(.*\)\( [a-z,0-9]*$\)/\1\2 \1/g" desired_file_name I apreciate it even if you only explain part of it or at lest structure it with words as in s\alphanumerical_at_start\something\alphanumerical_at_end\something_else\global Could someone explain what that means, why and… >>> More
Sed problem in a Bash script

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Hello there. I'm having a problem using the sed command . I'm trying to write a bash script that does the following : search for the line that contain :@ then save the line that contained :@ and replace it with new line as in the following: #! /bin/bash echo "Please enter the ip address… >>> More

Related posts about grep

grep is inconsistently defaulting to grep -P?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a script that does some housekeeping that works perfectly well when invoked from an interactive shell, but did nothing when invoked by cron. To troubleshoot this I started a shell with a 'blank' environment with the command: env -i /bin/bash --noprofile --norc Using this blank env I've dug… >>> More
grep pattern interpretted differently in 2 different systems with same grep version

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
We manufacture a linux appliance for data centers, and all are running fedora installed from the same kickstart process. There are different hardware versions, some with IDE hard drives and some SCSI, so the filesystems may be at /dev/sdaN or /dev/hdaN. We have a web interface into these appliances… >>> More
grep --exclude/--include syntax (do not grep through certain files)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm looking for the string "foo=" (without quotes) in text files in a directory tree. It's on a common Linux machine, I have bash shell: grep -ircl "foo=" * In the directories are also many binary files which match "foo=". As these results are not relevant and slow down the search, I want grep… >>> More
Grep failing with Emacs (windows), and GnuWin32 Grep

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I've downloaded and installed the GnuWin32 tools, and added the grep executables to the Emacs bin. I've also, for what its worth, added the GnuWin32 bin folder to my Path variable. Problem is though, when I try and run with suggested grep commands, I always get: Grep exited abnormally with… >>> More
How to grep a line start with "*" using grep

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, How can I use 'grep' to get lines start with '* ' in my file? I tried grep "" myfile I tried grep " " myfile but returns all the lines of my file. Thank you. >>> More