David wrote: > I'm having a problem with perl *and* sed with a particular replace line. The lines I'm trying to search for, and replace, both have "/" characters, which is completely killing me. > > line="password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_cracklib.so retry=3" > newline="password required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_cracklib.so minlen=8 dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=0 minclass=3 retry=3" > > I need to maintain whitespace, too. > > perl -p -i -e s/"$line"/"$newline"/ file > > That tosses out all kinds of errors, since perl believes the first "/lib" line to be the next delimiter. Even using the magical \Q and \E things doesn't work. AARRGGHH!!! > > Sed seems to have the same problem. Anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to work? And yes, unfortunately, I need to use the variables. > > Thanks, > David > > .) you should probably have quotes around the -e argument, as in: perl -p -i -e "s/$line/$newline/" file .) I'm not positive, but I believe that the character immediately after the s becomes the separator, so you could use s|from|to| or s^from^to^ or whatever. Otherwise, simply use \ before the special character to escape it from being interpreted as being special (iow, treat it literally). -- -Eric 'shubes' --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss