CentOS Linux Server Guide

Replacing words and characters of a file in CentOS Linux

tr - also known as 'Translate' for Linux or Unix. This is the command to find and replacin words and character for a given files

Command and Options:

tr [options] string1 string2

Warning:

You must be extra careful when applying this command, all the redirection must be in the following

tr abc ABCD < A.log (OK!)

However, you issue the wrong redirection command, you will destroy all the contents of the file

tr abc ABCD > A.log (WRONG!)

Option:

Options Description

-s squeeze several character string into one

-d remove specified character string

-c complement the set of characters specified by string1

string 1 original characters of a file to be replaced

string 2 new characters to replace

Examples:

The the following example will replacing character of "abcd" with "ABCD"

tr abcd ABCD < mail.log

The following example will replacing all the lowercase characters (character to a-z) with Uppercase (character A to Z)

tr a-z A-z < A.log

The following example will replace any characters of a file with "#" , EXCEPT number

tr -c 0-9 # < A.log

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