[SOLVED] Can I replace Affx- with rs in text file in bash

Issue

I have a huge text file. I want to replace all strings that start with Affx- and then some numbers (like Affx-74537382 or Affx-4374575) with rs (and the same numbers like: rs74537382 or rs4374575. Is this possible with sed -i 's/Affx-/rs/ ?

Since the file is so huge I am not sure how to verify that the command is working correctly.

Solution

You can use

sed -E 's/^Affx(-[0-9]+)/rs\1/' file > tmp && mv tmp file

Details:

• -E - POSIX ERE syntax enabled
• ^ - start of string
• Affx - a literal text
• (-[0-9]+) - Group 1 (\1 refers to the value in this group): - and one or more digits.

See the online demo:

#!/bin/bash
s='Blah-1233455
Affx-74537382
Some line here
Affx-4374575
End of text 123456778.'

sed -E 's/^Affx(-[0-9]+)/rs\1/' <<< "$s"

Output:

Blah-1233455
rs-74537382
Some line here
rs-4374575
End of text 123456778.

Answered By - Wiktor Stribiżew

Answer Checked By - Timothy Miller (WPSolving Admin)