I tried this out and it almost worked except grep doesn't allow you to edit a file in-place. So I tried grep -Ev "(# Please.*|# with.*|^#$)" $1 > $1 but that didn't work.
but really your solution is just fine. You can add some error checking (and make it into a one-liner): grep -Ev .... %1 > /tmp/msg && cat /tmp/msg > $1
(this way the cat will only execute if the grep didn't produce an error)
Why not use sed?
You could do the following: sed -i '/\(# Please.*\|# with.*\|^#$\)/ d' $1
The -i flag will do the edits in-place, saving you having to create a temp file.
Assuming that the unwanted block always occurs at the same place, you could also do sed -i '/^# Please/,+2 d' $1 (Which will delete the line starting with "# Please" and the next 2 lines as well)
**Just noticed a typo in the second sed statement - There was a missing "/" (fixed now)
Edit: I just tried this on macOS and it errors out with sed: 1: ".git/COMMIT_EDITMSG": invalid command code .. With some searching, I learnt that BSD sed (the one that macOS uses) requires an extension with -i. However, even that gives me sed: 1: "/^# Please/,+2 d": expected context address. Apparently the +2 thing is GNU sed specific. The first statement (with -i.bak) didn't error, but didn't remove the lines either. I'm guessing it's because of inconsistencies in implementations of sed.
Does the other sed command work for you (sed -i.bak '/\(# Please.*\|# with.*\|^#$\)/ d' $1)?
You can also try this one: sed -i.bak '/^# Please/,/^#$/ d' $1
To keep things tidy you could make it sed -i.bak '/^# Please/,/^#$/ d' $1 && rm $1.bak
I tried this out and it almost worked except grep doesn't allow you to edit a file in-place. So I tried
grep -Ev "(# Please.*|# with.*|^#$)" $1 > $1but that didn't work.Eventually, the following worked:
Any better way to do this with
grep -v?According to SO this is really a limitation of UNIX. The best answer I found there is (stackoverflow.com/a/29735702/5863381)
but really your solution is just fine. You can add some error checking (and make it into a one-liner):
grep -Ev .... %1 > /tmp/msg && cat /tmp/msg > $1(this way the cat will only execute if the grep didn't produce an error)
Why not use sed?
You could do the following:
sed -i '/\(# Please.*\|# with.*\|^#$\)/ d' $1The
-iflag will do the edits in-place, saving you having to create a temp file.Assuming that the unwanted block always occurs at the same place, you could also do
sed -i '/^# Please/,+2 d' $1(Which will delete the line starting with "# Please" and the next 2 lines as well)**Just noticed a typo in the second
sedstatement - There was a missing "/" (fixed now)Great idea. I'll update the article to use this.
Edit: I just tried this on macOS and it errors out with
sed: 1: ".git/COMMIT_EDITMSG": invalid command code .. With some searching, I learnt that BSDsed(the one that macOS uses) requires an extension with-i. However, even that gives mesed: 1: "/^# Please/,+2 d": expected context address. Apparently the+2thing is GNU sed specific. The first statement (with-i.bak) didn't error, but didn't remove the lines either. I'm guessing it's because of inconsistencies in implementations ofsed.Does the other
sedcommand work for you (sed -i.bak '/\(# Please.*\|# with.*\|^#$\)/ d' $1)?You can also try this one:
sed -i.bak '/^# Please/,/^#$/ d' $1To keep things tidy you could make it
sed -i.bak '/^# Please/,/^#$/ d' $1 && rm $1.bakPerfect.