sed: -e expression #1, char 4: unknown command:

Question

Could someone tell me what does this reply mean ?

sed: -e expression #1, char 4: unknown command: `
'

I get it when I use :

sed -n "$num"p $javaFile >> ~/Desktop/$1_sql.txt
for i in `seq 5 $max`
do
    lineNum=$(($num + $i))
    echo $lineNum
    sed -n "$lineNum"p $javaFile >> ~/Desktop/$1_sql.txt
done

Where $javaFile is a java file and num is an integer.

Answer 1

Your script is OK. It's the line terminator making it doesn't work, probably. You can check the line terminator with

file YourScriptFile

If it returns something like "...with CRLF line terminators", You can change CRLF to LF line terminator by using

flip -u YourScriptFile

Run the script file again.

P.S. There is a quick and dirty solution to your problem

cut -d $'\n' -s -f ${num},$((num+5))-$((num+max)) $javaFile

-d $'\n' means we are using \n as delimiter and -f ${num},$((num+5))-$((num+max)) means the fields (in this situation, lines) you want. Fields are a list, which can be 1-3, 1,3-10 etc.