Need Help! Consider: echo \"abcabcabc\" | sed \"s/aBc/xyZ/gi;s/Z/a/;s/c/CCC/g\"

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Need Help!

Consider: echo "abcabcabc" | sed "s/aBc/xyZ/gi;s/Z/a/;s/c/CCC/g" | xargs ls -ld* What is happening here? I have previously created a few files, will this command show any of them? If yes, which one(s)? Can this line be shortened? Without loosing functionality? A string is being passed by sed into echo, which transforms the string, and the resulting string is then passed into xargs which uses it to show a *short* list *of directories* that match such string in/by name. The sed does several replaces, the first is from 'aBc' into 'xyZ' in a global and case- sensitive manner. The second is a replace from 'Z' to 'a' where only the first occurrence of Z will be replaced. Finally, c is replaced by 'CCC' in a global manner. | Yes, a single directory will be shown if it matches the right name l If that directory is named xyaxyZxyZ it will show only this directory. | "ls -d xyaxyZxyZ" is the shortest form, but there are other versions possible/valid depending on how you see "without loosing functionality A string is being passed by sed into echo, which transforms the string, and the resulting string is then passed into xargs which uses it to show a *shortk list *of files* that match such string in/by name. The sed does several replaces, the first is from 'aBc' into xyZ' in a global and case- sensitive manner. The second is a replace from Z' to 'a' where only the first occurrence of Z will be replaced. Finally, c is replaced by 'CCC' in a global manner. I Yes, a single file will be shown if it matches the right name | If that file is named 'xyaxyZxyZ' it will show only this file. | "Is-If xyaxyZxyZ" is the shortest form, but there are other versions possible/valid depending on how you see "without loosing functionality"

Explanation / Answer

Solution: -

Option (A) is the actual solution. Below is the description how it is functioning.

COMMAND: -

$ echo “abcabcabc” | sed "s/aBc/xyZ/gi;s/Z/a/;s/c/CCC/g" | xargs ls -ld

Iteration: -

Here “abcabcabc”, from where we are searching the results “xyaxyZxyZ”. So, what sed command does is it search for a pattern and replace with your desired pattern. Now sed "s/aBc/xyZ/gi is doing is search for ‘aBc’ in your echo command message. “s” is used for search for the content i.e it is searching for a pattern and it ignores case sensitivity ‘aBc’ and it will replace by xyZ globally for that reason ‘g’ is being used and ‘i’ is used for case sensitivity.

abcabcabc -> xyZxyZxyz

now “xyZxyZxyZ” is being search and replaced by the second part of the search command i.e. “s/Z/a/”. here the first occurrence of ‘Z’ is being replaced by ‘a’ as shown below.

xyZxyZxyZ -> xyaxyZxyZ.

But the 3rd part of the sed command can be eliminated because there is no occurrence of ‘c’ as it is already previously replaced by ‘Z’ in previous steps.

Now my changed result is being searched. For that reason, we are using ‘xargs’ command as it converts the input into standard input and then pass it to the command.

‘ls -ld’ command is used to list the directories. ‘l’ is used for listing and ‘d’ is used for directories. Finally it will give the desired output.

Command:

$ echo “abcabcabc” | sed "s/aBc/xyZ/gi;s/Z/a/;s/c/CCC/g" | xargs ls -ld

Output: -

drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Jun 9 10:58 xyaxyZxyZ

We can use eliminate the use of ‘s/c/CCC/g’ as this is of no use. After eliminating we can write the command like this.

echo "abcabcabc" | sed "s/aBc/xyZ/gi;s/Z/a/" | xargs ls -ld                                                                                    

drwxr-xr-x 2 44674 44674 4096 Jun  9 10:58 xyaxyZxyZ

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