How can I add text to the end of a line that contains multiple strings?

Question

I have a file like this:

1;1471375551;joe;WO12344;
2;1471378551;frank;WO12345;1471380211
3;1471383211;frank;WO12345;1471385211
4;1471385311;frank;WO12345;
5;1471385311;joe;WO12346;1471388211

I'd like to use a bash script to find the line that contains a specified name (like frank) as well as a specified WO number (like WO12345) and also ends with a ;, then add a string to the end of the line. I want to edit the file directly, not output to stdout. I know how to use read to get the name and WO number. I'm guessing sed with -i is the right tool. How can I do that?

Answer 1

If the name and WO are always consecutive, it's quite straightforward:

sed  '/frank;WO12345;/s/;$/;sometext/' -i file

If they can appear either way around, or not necessarily next to each other, use blocks of commands to combine the two tests:

sed  '/;frank;/{/;WO12345;/s/;$/;sometext/}' -i file

Answer 2

awk is better suited for field separated data.

Using awk:

awk -F';' '$3=="frank" && $4="WO12345" {print $0 ";Foobar"}' OFS=';' file.txt

replace ;Foobar with what you want to insert at the end.

Here we are checking if ; separated 3rd and 4th fields match out desired strings, if so string ;Foobar is added at the end.

Latest GNU awk (>=4.10) has inplace editing option:

awk -i inplace -F';' '$3=="frank" && $4="WO12345" {print $0 ";Foobar"}' OFS=';' file.txt

If you don't have that use sponge from GNU moreutils or a temporaruy file:

awk -F';' '$3=="frank" && $4="WO12345" {print $0 ";Foobar"}' OFS=';' file.txt | sponge file.txt

awk -F';' '$3=="frank" && $4="WO12345" {print $0 ";Foobar"}' OFS=';' \
       file.txt >file_temp.txt && mv file_temp.txt file.txt

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If you insist on sed:

sed -Ei '/^([^;]*;){2}frank;WO12345;/ s/$/;Foobar/' file.txt

• ([^;]*;){2} matches first two fields and then we have checked if the 3rd and fourth fields are desired and then the replacement is done

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Example:

$ cat file.txt
1;1471375551;joe;WO12344;
2;1471378551;frank;WO12345;1471380211
3;1471383211;frank;WO12345;1471385211
4;1471385311;frank;WO12345;
5;1471385311;joe;WO12346;1471388211

$ awk -F';' '$3=="frank" && $4="WO12345" {print $0 ";Foobar"}' OFS=';' file.txt
2;1471378551;frank;WO12345;1471380211;Foobar
3;1471383211;frank;WO12345;1471385211;Foobar
4;1471385311;frank;WO12345;;Foobar

$ sed -E '/^([^;]*;){2}frank;WO12345;/ s/$/;Foobar/' file.txt
1;1471375551;joe;WO12344;
2;1471378551;frank;WO12345;1471380211;Foobar
3;1471383211;frank;WO12345;1471385211;Foobar
4;1471385311;frank;WO12345;;Foobar
5;1471385311;joe;WO12346;1471388211