Hi,

I need to subsititue a "\" with "\\"

I tried this:
$ print -r $abc
\some\var
$ res=`print -r $abc | sed -e 's#\\#\\\\#g' `
sed: Unterminated `s' command

the backticks and ' are both balanced but it still gives the error. Any ideas?

thanks,
Rachana.

this works :

# replace the "\" with "/"
$res=`print -r $abc | tr '\\\\' /`
## thats 4 "\"'s in the tr but when i post it one is gone??
# replace "/" with "\\"
$res=`print -r $res | sed -e 's#\/#\\\\\\\\#g'`

did someone figure out a more elegant solution?

thanks,
Rachana

hi!

try this command...........

sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g' filename > newfilename

hope this will work for u.

--pooja

it doesnt:
$abc='\some\var\'
$ res=`print -r $abc | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/'`
sed: command garbled: s/\/\\/

but I tried this and it works:

$res=`print -r $abc | sed -e 's#\\\\#\\\\\\\\#g'`
+ + print -r \12\13\
+ sed -e s#\\#\\\\#g
res=\\12\\13\\

Needed to escape the backslash twice, once for the shell and then again for sed because i am taking the variable from the print stmt instead of a file.

Thanks,
Rachana.

Thats correct. You need to do the escaping twice. Else you can put the string in a file and use -f with sed.