sed one-liner to convert all uppercase to lowercase?

Question

I have a textfile in which some words are printed in ALL CAPS. I want to be able to just convert everything in the textfile to lowercase, using sed. That means that the first sentence would then read, 'i have a textfile in which some words are printed in all caps.'

Answer 1

Here are two methods for doing the conversion using tr and sed:

Using tr

Convert uppercase to lowercase

tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' < input.txt > output.txt

Convert lowercase to uppercase

tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' < input.txt > output.txt

Using sed on GNU (but not BSD or Mac)

Convert uppercase to lowercase

sed -e 's/\(.*\)/\L\1/' input.txt > output.txt

Convert lowercase to uppercase

sed -e 's/\(.*\)/\U\1/' input.txt > output.txt
 

The reason the sed version doesn't work on BSD or Mac is because those systems don't support the \L or \U flags

Answer 2

If you have GNU extensions, you can use sed's \L (lower entire match, or until \L [lower] or \E [end - toggle casing off] is reached), like so:

sed 's/.*/\L&/' <input >output

Note: '&' means the full match pattern.

As a side note, GNU extensions include \U (upper), \u (upper next character of match), \l (lower next character of match). For example, if you wanted to camelcase a sentence:

$ sed -E 's/\w+/\u&/g' <<< "Now is the time for all good men..." # Camel Case
Now Is The Time For All Good Men...

Note: Since the assumption is we have GNU extensions, we can use sequences such as \w (match a word character) and the -E (extended regex) option, which relieves you of having to escape the one-or-more quantifier (+) and certain other special regex characters.

Answer 3

You also can do this very easily with awk, if you're willing to consider a different tool:

echo "UPPER" | awk '{print tolower($0)}'

Answer 4

Here are many solutions :

To upercaser with perl, tr, sed and awk

perl -ne 'print uc'
perl -npe '$_=uc'
perl -npe 'tr/[a-z]/[A-Z]/'
perl -npe 'tr/a-z/A-Z/'
tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'
sed y/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/
sed 's/\([a-z]\)/\U\1/g'
sed 's/.*/\U&/'
awk '{print toupper($0)}'

To lowercase with perl, tr, sed and awk

perl -ne 'print lc'
perl -npe '$_=lc'
perl -npe 'tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/'
perl -npe 'tr/A-Z/a-z/'
tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'
sed y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/
sed 's/\([A-Z]\)/\L\1/g'
sed 's/.*/\L&/'
awk '{print tolower($0)}'

Complicated bash to lowercase :

while read v;do v=${v//A/a};v=${v//B/b};v=${v//C/c};v=${v//D/d};v=${v//E/e};v=${v//F/f};v=${v//G/g};v=${v//H/h};v=${v//I/i};v=${v//J/j};v=${v//K/k};v=${v//L/l};v=${v//M/m};v=${v//N/n};v=${v//O/o};v=${v//P/p};v=${v//Q/q};v=${v//R/r};v=${v//S/s};v=${v//T/t};v=${v//U/u};v=${v//V/v};v=${v//W/w};v=${v//X/x};v=${v//Y/y};v=${v//Z/z};echo "$v";done

Complicated bash to uppercase :

while read v;do v=${v//a/A};v=${v//b/B};v=${v//c/C};v=${v//d/D};v=${v//e/E};v=${v//f/F};v=${v//g/G};v=${v//h/H};v=${v//i/I};v=${v//j/J};v=${v//k/K};v=${v//l/L};v=${v//m/M};v=${v//n/N};v=${v//o/O};v=${v//p/P};v=${v//q/Q};v=${v//r/R};v=${v//s/S};v=${v//t/T};v=${v//u/U};v=${v//v/V};v=${v//w/W};v=${v//x/X};v=${v//y/Y};v=${v//z/Z};echo "$v";done

Simple bash to lowercase :

while read v;do echo "${v,,}"; done

Simple bash to uppercase :

while read v;do echo "${v^^}"; done

Note that ${v,} and ${v^} only change the first letter.

You should use it that way :

(while read v;do echo "${v,,}"; done) < input_file.txt > output_file.txt

Answer 5

I like some of the answers here, but there is a sed command that should do the trick on any platform:

sed 'y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/'

Anyway, it's easy to understand. And knowing about the y command can come in handy sometimes.

Answer 6

If you have GNU sed (likely on Linux, but not on *BSD or macOS):

echo  "Hello  MY name is SUJIT "  | sed 's/./\L&/g'

Output:

hello  my name is sujit

Answer 7

If you are using posix sed

Selection for any case for a pattern (converting the searched pattern with this sed than use the converted pattern in you wanted command using regex:

echo "${MyOrgPattern} | sed "s/[aA]/[aA]/g;s/[bB]/[bB]/g;s/[cC]/[cC]/g;s/[dD]/[dD]/g;s/[eE]/[eE]/g;s/[fF]/[fF]/g;s/[gG]/[gG]/g;s/[hH]/[hH]/g;s/[iI]/[iI]/g;s/[jJ]/[jJ]/g;s/[kK]/[kK]/g;s/[lL]/[lL]/g;s/[mM]/[mM]/g;s/[nN]/[nN]/g;s/[oO]/[oO]/g;s/[pP]/[pP]/g;s/[qQ]/[qQ]/g;s/[rR]/[rR]/g;s/[sS]/[sS]/g;s/[tT]/[tT]/g;s/[uU]/[uU]/g;s/[vV]/[vV]/g;s/[wW]/[wW]/g;s/[xX]/[xX]/g;s/[yY]/[yY]/g;s/[zZ]/[zZ]/g" | read -c MyNewPattern
 YourInputStreamCommand | egrep "${MyNewPattern}"

convert in lower case

sed "s/[aA]/a/g;s/[bB]/b/g;s/[cC]/c/g;s/[dD]/d/g;s/[eE]/e/g;s/[fF]/f/g;s/[gG]/g/g;s/[hH]/h/g;s/[iI]/i/g;s/j/[jJ]/g;s/[kK]/k/g;s/[lL]/l/g;s/[mM]/m/g;s/[nN]/n/g;s/[oO]/o/g;s/[pP]/p/g;s/[qQ]/q/g;s/[rR]/r/g;s/[sS]/s/g;s/[tT]/t/g;s/[uU]/u/g;s/[vV]/v/g;s/[wW]/w/g;s/[xX]/x/g;s/[yY]/y/g;s/[zZ]/z/g"

same for uppercase replace lower letter between // by upper equivalent in the sed

Have fun

Answer 8

short, sweet and you don't even need redirection :-)

perl -p -i -e 'tr/A-Z/a-z/' file

Answer 9

Instead of typing this long expression:

sed 'y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/' input

One could use this:

sed 'y/'$(printf "%s" {A..Z} "/" {a..z} )'/' input