sed error "Invalid range end"

regex ubuntu sed substitution
JJD picture JJD · May 19, 2013 · Viewed 10.6k times · Source

I run this substitution command on Ubuntu 12.04.

$ sed -e "s/([a-zA-Z0-9.-/\\ :]+)/\1/g"

However, the following error is raised.

sed: -e expression #1, char 27: Invalid range end

I can remember the same expression works on MacOSX.
Can you describe why the command fails?

Answer

Birei picture Birei · May 19, 2013

You can solve it in two ways. One of them is to use -r switch to avoid escaping special characters and move - in the range to first or last position and avoid its special meaning, it would be like:

sed -re "s/([a-zA-Z0-9./\\ :-]+)/\1/g"

Otherwise you will need to escape either (, ) and +, like:

sed -e "s/\([a-zA-Z0-9./\\ :-]\+\)/\1/g"

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