I have a text file that looks like:
#filelists.txt
a
# aaa
b
#bbb
c #ccc
I want to delete parts of lines starting with '#' and afterwards, if line starts with #, then to delete whole line.
So I use 'sed' command in my shell:
sed -e "s/#*//g" -e "/^$/d" filelists.txt
I wish its result is:
a
b
c
but actually result is:
filelists.txt
a
aaa
b
bbb
c ccc
What's wrong in my "sed" command?
I know '*' which means "any", so I think that '#*' means string after "#".
Isn't it?
You may use
sed 's/#.*//;/^$/d' file > outfile
The s/#.*// removes # and all the rest of the line and /^$/d drops empty lines.
See an online test:
s="#filelists.txt
a
# aaa
b
#bbb
c #ccc"
sed 's/#.*//;/^$/d' <<< "$s"
Output:
a
b
c
Another idea: match lines having #, then remove # and the rest of the line there and drop if the line is empty:
sed '/#/{s/#.*//;/^$/d}' file > outfile
See another online demo.
This way, you keep the original empty lines.
* does not mean "any" (at least not in regular expression context). * means "zero or more of the preceding pattern element". Which means you are deleting "zero or more #". Since you only have one #, you delete it, and the rest of the line is intact.
You need s/#.*//: "delete # followed by zero or more of any character".
EDIT: was suggesting grep -v, but didn't notice the third example (# in the middle of the line).
. is just "any character". .* is "zero or more of any character".#. means first after #, #.. means 2 characters after #, #.* means lots of characters after #
#*means zero or more of#. To make this work you need#.*where.means any character and the star then gives zero or more of any character.