delete the last 2 characters from a text file: shell script

Question

I need to delete the last 2 characters from a text file in shell script. Any idea about how I can do it?

Answer 1

Delete the last two characters on the last line only with sed:

$ sed '$s/..$//' file

If you are happy with changes then use -i to store them back to the file:

$ sed -i '$s/..$//' file

If you wanted to delete the last two characters on every line it would be:

$ sed 's/..$//' file

Again use -i to store the changes back to the file:

$ sed -i 's/..$//' file