Remove lines between two pattern (inclusive of the pattern) using awk or sed

Question

My output file is as below:

judi#cat file ---ABC--- word1 word2 word3 word4 word5 word6 ---end_ABC--- ---DEF--- line1 line2 line3 line4 ---end_DEF--- judi#

I need to remove the lines in between the pattern ABC and end_ABC (inclusive the pattern, then replace with new content; the new content is in a file).

The content of the file varies, so I need to use only the pattern.

judi#file1 ---ABC--- wordA1 wordA2 wordA3 ---end_ABC--- judi#

Desired result has to be

judi# ---ABC--- wordA1 wordA2 wordA3 ---end_ABC--- ---DEF--- line1 line2 line3 line4 ---end_DEF--- judi#

I tried this command:

sed '/ABC/,/end_ABC/{/ABC/!{/end_ABC/!d}}' file > file 2

But I get this error:

sed: command garbled: /ABC/,/end_ABC/{/ABC/!{/end_ABC/!d}}

Your command works for me under GNU sed. If you are using BSD (OSX) sed, consider adding some semicolons before the closing braces: } --> ;}. — John1024
– John1024, Commented Jun 13, 2015 at 21:05
yes command looks nice (GNU sed), only file+2, that command will delete all lines in range excluding first and last — josifoski
– josifoski, Commented Jun 13, 2015 at 21:13
in the future, please learn to search S.O. before posting. Your headline 'remove lines between two pattern' (with an 's' on pattern) returns 76 items. Good luck. — shellter
– shellter, Commented Jun 14, 2015 at 14:19

Ed Morton · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-14 04:22:19Z

Never use range expressions as they make trivial tasks very slightly briefer but even slightly more complicated tasks need a complete rewrite or duplicate conditions. Just use a flag:

awk ' NR==FNR { rep = rep $0 OFS; next } /---ABC---/ { printf "%s", rep; inBlock=1 } !inBlock /---end_ABC---/ { inBlock=0 } ' file1 file

Benjamin W. · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-21 20:30:58Z

sed '/end_ABC/a ##here' file | sed '/ABC/,/end_ABC/d' | sed '/##here/r file1' | sed '/##here/d' >file2

output

judi#cat file judi#file1 ---ABC--- wordA1 wordA2 wordA3 ---end_ABC--- judi# ---DEF--- line1 line2 line3 line4 ---end_DEF--- judi#

a ##here is appending ##here after matching end_ABC.

r file1 is inserting text from file1 after finding pattern ##here.

I think I am using some other sed not GUN sed as you mentioned .. getting the below error "sed: command garbled: /end_ABC/a ##here" how do I check which sed is am using ?

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