[SOLVED] Remove square brackets using sed

Issue

I'm attempting to delete square bracket and convert the strings below:

{"id":1","color": ["green","red", "blue"]}, {"id":2, color:black}

become:

{"id":1","color": "green,red,blue"}, {"id":2, color:black}

I have tried this code but still get an error :

sed: -e expression #1, char 39: Unmatched ) or )

sed 's/\("color"\):[\([a-z0-9]*\)]/\1:"\2"/g'

How do I fix this?

Solution

You may use

sed ':a;s/\(\[[^][]*\)",[ \t]*"/\1,/;ta ; s/\("color"\):[ \t]*\[\([^][]*\)]/\1:\2/g;' file > newfile

See the online sed demo.

:a;s/\(\[[^][]*\)",[ \t]*"/\1,/;ta Details

• :a - label
• s/\(\[[^][]*\)",[ \t]*"/\1,/:
  • \(\[[^][]*\) - finds and captures into Group 1 any 0 or more chars other than ] and [
  • ", - a ", substring
  • [^ \t]* - zero or more chars other than space and tab
  • " - a " char
• \1, - replaces with the Group 1 contents + a comma
• ta - loop to :a label if there was a match at the preceding iteration.

s/\("color"\):[ \t]*\[\([^][]*\)]/\1:\2/g Details

• \("color"\) - matches and captures into Group 1 a "color" substring
• : - a colon
• [ \t]* - 0+ tabs or spaces
• \[ - a [ char
• \([^][]*\) - Group 2: any 0+ chars other than ] and [
• ] - a ] char
• \1:\2 - replaces with Group 1 value, :, Group 2 value
• g - all occurrences.

Answered By - Wiktor Stribiżew