Adding strings to certain lines using sed

Question

I'm trying to do some formatting to some man pages and I need to add

] hfill \\

to certain headers. I want to make this

NAME
   env - run a program in a modified environment

SYNOPSIS
   env    [-]    [-i]    [-u   name]   [--ignore-environment]
   [--unset=name] [name=value]... [command [args...]]

DESCRIPTION
   This manual page documents the GNU version  of  env.   env
   runs  a  command with an environment modified as specified
   by the command line...

into this

\item[NAME] \hfill \\
   env - run a program in a modified environment

\item[SYNOPSIS] \hfill \\
   env    [-]    [-i]    [-u   name]   [-\hspace{.01cm}-ignore-environment]
   [-\hspace{.01cm}-unset=name] [name=value]... [command [args...]]

\item[DESCRIPTION] \hfill \\
   This manual page documents the GNU version  of  env.   env
   runs  a  command with an environment modified as specified
   by the command line...

I got the "\item[" part down but I can't get the other half for whatever reasons. The command I'm using:

 /[A-Z]/s/$/\] \\hfill \\\\/

works but shows up on lines I don't want.

The regex /[A-Z]/ matches any line with a capital letter. Did you want it to be /^\\item\[[A-Z]/ so that it only matches a capital letter that follows \item[ — Jerry Jeremiah
– Jerry Jeremiah, Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 6:04

NeronLeVelu · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-17 07:29:53Z

1

Try this, assuming header ar only line starting with a capital letter

sed '/^[A-Z]/ s/.*/\\item[&] \\hfill \\\\/' YourFile

for the \hspace{.01cm}, you shold define when it should occur (condition for)

edited Sep 17, 2015 at 7:29

answered Sep 17, 2015 at 6:08

NeronLeVelu

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potong · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-17 06:52:47Z

0

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed 's/^[[:upper:]]\+$/\\item[&] \\hfill \\\\/;s/\[--/[-\\hspace{.01cm}-/g' file

If you do not have GNU sed, try:

sed -e 's/^[[:upper:]][[:upper:]]*$/\\item[&] \\hfill \\\\/' -e 's/\[--/[-\\hspace{.01cm}-/g' file

answered Sep 17, 2015 at 6:52

potong

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Kerwin · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-17 07:22:51Z

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sed -r 's/^([A-Z]+)$/\\item[\1] \\hfill \\\\/' file.txt

you can do it by one step.

answered Sep 17, 2015 at 7:22

Kerwin

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