From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Thu Feb  2 10:29:32 2012
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E40D106564A
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Thu,  2 Feb 2012 10:29:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nvass@gmx.com)
Received: from mailout-eu.gmx.com (mailout-eu.gmx.com [213.165.64.42])
	by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id E29CF8FC12
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Thu,  2 Feb 2012 10:29:31 +0000 (UTC)
Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 02 Feb 2012 10:29:30 -0000
Received: from 77.49.192.186.dsl.dyn.forthnet.gr (EHLO [192.168.1.64])
	[77.49.192.186]
	by mail.gmx.com (mp-eu006) with SMTP; 02 Feb 2012 11:29:30 +0100
X-Authenticated: #46156728
X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1/xoporcUrxVkCzuiBstgCe7XhXL6RbEjzqdIdQgM
	1XktunxJSzrUDp
Message-ID: <4F2A6575.90706@gmx.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:29:09 +0200
From: Nikos Vassiliadis <nvass@gmx.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US;
	rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110414 Thunderbird/3.1.10
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Matthias Apitz <guru@unixarea.de>
References: <20120202062236.GA3419@tinyCurrent>
In-Reply-To: <20120202062236.GA3419@tinyCurrent>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: some kind of binary sed(1) command
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:29:32 -0000

On 2/2/2012 8:22 AM, Matthias Apitz wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a normal ASCII file wich has in some places two lines of '*',
> separated by an empty line, i.e.
>
> ....\n
> *********************\n
> \n
> *********************\n
> ....\n
>
> and I want to substitute the \n between the star lines by \f; the
> 'binary' sed command would just be
>
> 	s/*****\n\n*****/*****\n\f*****/
>
> which ofc does not work with sed(1) because it is line oriented;
> I could write something in perl, C, awk or whatever language, but I
> would prefer to do it with the normal commands... any ideas?
>
> Thanks
>
> 	matthias

Perhaps, something like this:
> raidmadi% sed '/\*\*\*\*/{ N;N;s/\(\*\*\*\*\n\)\(\n\)\(\*\*\*\*\)/\1\\f\
> \3/; }; '
> ****
>
> ****
> ****
> \f
> ****
> ****
> foo
> ****
> ****
> foo
> ****

Keep in mind that I am using zsh which allows you to write multi-line
commands.

HTH, Nikos