On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Rich Shepard <rshep...@appl-ecosys.com> wrote: > On Tue, 15 Nov 2016, Robert Citek wrote: > >> $ <<< '1996/03/10' sed -re 's#([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})#\1-\2-\3#g' >> 1996-03-10 > > Robert, > > Yep. This works. I wondered whether my books are out of date and I did not > need the escape parentheses and brackets.
That's because of the -r (--regexp-extended) switch that is specific to Gnu. If using a Mac, use the -E switch (or install homebrew). >> This is why you want to KISS -- use tr, if possible. > > Reading the man page I don't see how to use tr on a file or limit its use > to only the date field. Will look for more detailed explanation. tr works on the entire file, or more accurately the entire input stream: $ cat file.dat | tr / - But if you truly want to limit your operations to a specific field, sed isn't the right tool, either. For that, you'll need something that parses CSV data (based on your example). perl, python, ruby, etc. come to mind. Regards, - Robert _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug