I am trying to use TCLs builtin exec procedure to run the following sed shell command:

sed -i 's/"VALUE.${name}">.*</"VALUE.${name}">${value}</' ${dir}/imp.xml

However when I pass it to exec tcl errors out with

sed: -e expression #1, char 1: unknown command: `''

no idea how to interpret this.

I tried escaping the exec string:

exec {sed -i 's/"VALUE.${name}">.*</"VALUE.${name}">${value}</' ${dir}/imp.xml}

However this prevents the tcl variables from being expanded inside of the string.

Does anyone know what I need to do to get tcl to exec this sed program?

(my shell is csh if that is relevant)

CodePudding user response：

Each argument to the exec command must correspond to an individual argument at the shell command line, so enclosing everything in {} doesn't work.

Try this:, where all double quotes and dollar signs are escaped.

exec sed -i 's/\"VALUE.\${name}\">.*</\"VALUE.\${name}\">\${value}' \${dir}/impl.xml

CodePudding user response：

The final solution involved 2 changes to the command string,

1. Escape all the double quote characters, (thanks @Chris Heithoff)
2. Single quotes are handled funny by TCL, replacing them with double quotes (that are not escaped!) resolves the issue.

The final, working command string:

exec sed -i "s/\"VALUE.${name}\">.*</\"VALUE.${name}\">${alue}</" ${dir}/impl.xml