Question

my situation is this – I have a file:

this line(5)
that line(6)
another line(9)
one more(88)
last line(156)

I need to change the values in brackets from that to:

this line(1)
that line(2)
another line(3)
one more(4)
last line(5)

Basically, make the values ordered starting from 1.

Now, here’s my code:

#!/bin/bash

FILE=$1
COUNT=0
echo "Working with $FILE"

if [ -f $FILE ]; then
while read -r line; do 
    echo ${line/\([0-9]{1,3}\)/\($COUNT\)};
     let COUNT++;
  done < $FILE
else
  echo "File does not exist!"
fi

Here’s what I get:

this line(5))/(0)}
that line(6))/(1)}
another line(9))/(2)}
one more(88))/(3)}
last line(156))/(4)}

What am I doing wrong? How can I specify in regex a number of artbitrary length?

Much appreciated.

Answer 1

change your echo line to this:

echo ${line%%\([0-9]*\)}\($COUNT\)

Edit: The pattern replacement versions works as well, assuming there isn’t parentheses with numbers anywhere else in the line – to use the pattern replacement and make sure that it only looks at the end of the line, use a % char after the first / separator, like so:

echo ${line/%\([0-9]*\)/\($COUNT\)}