grouping in sed with OR operator in bash in one line

[Toby]

Hi,

I would like to replace a a set of words by another word via sed. My
first try was:

echo "a cat or a dog" | sed 's/\(cat\)\|\(dog\)/PET/g'

I also tried some variations of this. But all failed.

For any help I would be very happy.

Cheers,
Toby

P.S. some variations of the search pattern
\(cat|dog\)
\(\(cat\)\|\(dog\)\)

[Alan Curry]

In article <caa6a54d-8488-499c...@g35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,

Toby <tobias...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I would like to replace a a set of words by another word via sed. My
>first try was:
>
> echo "a cat or a dog" | sed 's/\(cat\)\|\(dog\)/PET/g'
>
>I also tried some variations of this. But all failed.

Works for me:

$ echo "a cat or a dog" | sed 's/\(cat\)\|\(dog\)/PET/g'
a PET or a PET

The \(...\) aren't necessary, since the \| has low precedence.

$ echo "a cat or a dog" | sed 's/cat\|dog/PET/g'
a PET or a PET

$ sed --version
GNU sed version 4.1.5
Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE,
to the extent permitted by law.

--
Alan Curry

[Toby]

On Jul 20, 10:02 pm, pac...@kosh.dhis.org (Alan Curry) wrote:
> In article <caa6a54d-8488-499c-8057-f24e930f3...@g35g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,

Hi Alan,

indeed I had the BSD version. I followed this to install GNU. Now it
works.

Thanks a lot.

Cheers,
Toby

References
[1] http://dsmarkchen.blogspot.com/2007/12/gnu-sed-on-mac.html