Replace newline character with ',' in Notepad or BBEdit or using Unix command `tr`?

Question

I have to replace the newline character with ',' for using in some oracle command but in a single command. I can't figure out how to do it.

Input:

R1
R2
R3
R4

Required Output:

'R1','R2','R3','R4'

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 24 '12 at 14:17

4

In BBedit, you would use a grep like these for find:

(R[0-9]+)\r

and replace:

'\1',

answered Dec 24 '12 at 14:17

New Alexandria

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 24 '12 at 05:33

2

Using tr:

cat data.txt | tr '\n' ','

If you need the quotes, you could pipe to sed:

cat data.txt | tr '\n' ',' | sed "s/,/','/g"

… which gets you pretty close:

R1','R2','R3','R4','

answered Dec 24 '12 at 05:33

davidchambers

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I am new to unix so could not understand why we can not directly replace newline with ',' characters – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:34

perreal · Answer 3 · 2012-12-24T05:51:31.437

2

Using sed:

 sed -n '1h;1!H;${ g; s/\n/,/g; s/\([^,]*\)/'\''\1'\''/gp}' input

edited Dec 24 '12 at 05:51

answered Dec 24 '12 at 05:44

perreal

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Thanks for replying ... while firing the command on terminal I am getting an error:" sed: 1: "1h;1!H;${ g; s/\n/,/g; ...": bad flag in substitute command: '}'" – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:08
it works even when I disable gnu extensions. Are you missing something during copy-paste? – perreal Dec 24 '12 at 06:12
I have pasted the following " sed -n '1h;1!H;${ g; s/\n/,/g; s/$[^,]*$/'\''\1'\''/gp}' – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:22
1

@Jagdeep: You are missing the escapes before the parentheses. `([^,]*)` needs to be `$[^,]*$` – Steve Dec 24 '12 at 06:29
I am pasting correctly on the terminal using escapes properly but while pasting here in the comment it is escaping the value... – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:32
This looks wrong: `s/([^,]*)/` it needs to be `s/$[^,]*$/`. – perreal Dec 24 '12 at 06:34
1

@Jagdeep, what is the output of `echo $SHELL` on your terminal? – perreal Dec 24 '12 at 06:35
@perreal: o/p is /bin/bash – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:40

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 24 '12 at 06:00

2

Here's one way using sed:

sed ":a;N;\$!ba;s/\n/','/g;s/^\|$/'/g" file

Results:

'R1','R2','R3','R4'

answered Dec 24 '12 at 06:00

Steve

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Thanks for replying while firing the command I am getting an error; "-bash: !ba: event not found" – Learner Dec 24 '12 at 06:06

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 24 '12 at 13:14

The requirement to replace newlines does not match your sample output. To replace newlines with ,, you can do tr \\n ,, but this gives you output with a trailing comma that does not have a trailing newline. Also, it does not quote your input. Perhaps you are looking for:

paste -s -d, input

Or, if you do actually want the fields to be quoted:

< input sed "s/^\|$/'/g" | paste -s -d,

In the above, your input file is named input. The final command can also be written:

sed "s/^\|$/'/g" input | paste -s -d,

Hadn't heard of `paste` before. Thanks! – radical7 Jan 21 '13 at 05:07 — radical7, Jan 21 '13 at 05:07

Replace newline character with ',' in Notepad or BBEdit or using Unix command `tr`?

5 Answers5