Re: [9fans] awk help; not plan9 matter

[erik quanstrom]

i don't know why this can't be done with sed.  if the
task is to just change the second field without messing
with whitespace, why doesn't this work

; cat x
1     3 4       8
1 2     3 4
; sed 's:^([^   ][      ]*)([^  ]):\1hell:g' < x
1     hell 4    8
1 hell  3 4

- erik