Question

I have a file whose contents are like this :

control_data {
some data dadadadf 
some data fsfsfs
some more data
.
.
.
}
more data below 
{
.
.
}

I want to delete the data from “control_data” to the first “}”

I tried a command

sed "s/control_data\([^}]*\)}//g"

but this only works if we do not have multiple lines eg. this command works when we have data like:

control_data {some data dadadadf some data fsfsfs some more data...}more data

It gives :

more data {....} 

How to make this command work when we have data across multiple lines ?
I am new to shell scripting some explanation with answer will go a long way in helping.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This one may not be an ideal one but this used sed(your sed code)

cat ip_file.txt | tr '\n' ':' | sed "s/control_data\([^}]*\)}//g" | tr ':' '\n'

Logic: I am converting all new lines to : and then using your sed code and then converting all : to newlines
Note : My assumption is : wont be present in the file anywhere.