I have a CSV. I want to edit the 35th field of the CSV and write the change back to the 35th field. This is what I am doing on bash:
awk -F "," '{print $35}' test.csv | sed -i 's/^0/+91/g'
so, I am pulling the 35th entry using awk and then replacing the "0" in the starting position in the string with "+91". This one works perfet and I get desired output on the console.
Now I want this new entry to get written in the file. I am thinking of sed's "in -place" replacement feature but this fetuare needs and input file. In above command, I cannot provide input file because my primary command is awk and sed is taking the input from awk.
Thanks.
You should choose one of the two tools. As for sed, it can be done as follows:
sed -ri 's/^(([^,]*,){34})0([^,]*)/\1+91\3/' test.csv
Not sure about awk, but @shellter's comment might help with that.
The in-place feature of sed is misnamed, as it does not edit the file in place. Instead, it creates a new file with the same name. eg:
$ echo foo > foo
$ ln -f foo bar
$ ls -i foo bar # These are the same file
797325 bar 797325 foo
$ echo new-text > foo # Changes bar
$ cat bar
new-text
$ printf '/new/s//newer\nw\nq\n' | ed foo # Edit foo "in-place"; changes bar
9
newer-text
11
$ cat bar
newer-text
$ ls -i foo bar # Still the same file
797325 bar 797325 foo
$ sed -i s/new/newer/ foo # Does not edit in-place; creates a new file
$ ls -i foo bar
797325 bar 792722 foo
Since sed is not actually editing the file in place, but writing a new file and then renaming it to the old file, you might as well do the same.
awk ... test.csv | sed ... > test.csv.1 && mv test.csv.1 test.csv
There is the misperception that using sed -i somehow avoids the creation of the temporary file. It does not. It just hides the fact from you. Sometimes abstraction is a good thing, but other times it is unnecessary obfuscation. In the case of sed -i, it is the latter. The shell is really good at file manipulation. Use it as intended. If you do need to edit a file in place, don't use the streaming version of ed; just use ed
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