Ok that makes sense, I misread the man page (more than once!)
that's what happens with late-night "quick jobs" thanks both for your help must go cheers ...dave 2008/8/8 Jasper Bryant-Greene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 14:58 +1200, Dave G wrote: > > sed "s/WPT001/$WPTN/" $LOC/loc2test.gpx > $LOC/loc2test_sed.gpx > > > > gave the right result, however one weird thing is that even with > > the ../g" global switch it > > changed all the "WPT001"'s rather than just the first instance ? > > sed works on each line of its input. /g merely means to allow matching > multiple times _on one line_ > > you may need to look for a tool that doesn't treat each line > independently, although I would highly recommend considering an > alternative approach such as that suggested by Andrew. > > -Jasper > >
