sed delete multiple lines

Question

I have little problem with deleting multiple lines with sed. I read a lot of guides and discussions, but none of them helped. I have a xml file, and I need to delete more occurences of these three lines:

<function type="class">
   <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.UnLockIssueFunction</arg>
</function>

I wanted to use deleting just the part between <function>, but there is more of this tags. My xml file looks like this

<post-functions>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.function.issue.UpdateIssueStatusFunction</arg>
  </function>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.function.misc.CreateCommentFunction</arg>
  </function>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.function.issue.GenerateChangeHistoryFunction</arg>
  </function>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.function.issue.IssueReindexFunction</arg>
  </function>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.function.event.FireIssueEventFunction</arg>
    <arg name="eventTypeId">13</arg>
  </function>
  <function type="class">
    <arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.UnLockIssueFunction</arg>
  </function>
</post-functions>

You want to delete whatever tha comes between `` and `` or including the tags too? — askmish, Oct 25 '12 at 06:25
Do you have to do this with `sed`? It would be much better to use a scripting language with a DOM parsing library. — Barmar, Oct 25 '12 at 06:31
[Use an XML parser](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/647772) — , Oct 25 '12 at 07:04

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '12 at 06:54

2

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed '/<function type="class">/!b;N;N;/<function type="class">\s*\n\s*<arg name="class.name">com.mycompany.name.UnLockIssueFunction<\/arg>\s*\n\s*<\/function>/d' file

answered Oct 25 '12 at 06:54

potong

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@Jamalissimo (You might want to accept the answer, so that potong is properly rewarded) – P Marecki Nov 11 '12 at 12:15

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

1

When you get into fancier editing, fancier editors may help. Try reading up on scripting in VIM and take a look at these questions:

Search and delete multiple lines

VIM: globally match line, delete this and 2 following lines

edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

Community

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answered Oct 25 '12 at 07:03

Jeff Ferland

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sed delete multiple lines

2 Answers2

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