Replace a pattern between lines

May 13, 2022

I am trying to replace a pattern between the lines of a file.

Specifically, I would like to replace ,\n & with , &\n in large and multiple files. This actually moves the symbol & to the previous line. This is very easy with CTR+H, but I found it difficult with sed.

So, the initial file is in the following form:

      A +,
   &  B -,
   &  C ),
   &  D +,
   &  E (,
   &  F *,
 # &  G -,
   &  H +,
   &  I (,
   &  J +,

The output-desired form is:

      A +, &
      B -, &
      C ), &
      D +, &
      E (, &
      F *, &
#  &  G -,
      H +, &
      I (, &
      J +,

Following previous answered questions on stackoverflow, I tried to convert it with the commands below:

sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/,\n &/&\n /g' file1.txt > file2.txt

sed -i -e '$!N;/&/b1' -e 'P;D' -e:1 -e 's/\n[[:space:]]*/ /' file2.txt

but they fail if the symbol "#" is present in the file.

Is there any way to replace the matched pattern simpler, let’s say:
sed -i 's/,\n &/, &\n /g' file

Thank you in advance!

>Solution :

Using sed

$ sed ':a;N;s/\n \+\(&\) \(.*\)/ \1\n     \2/;ba' input_file
      A +, &
      B -, &
      C ), &
      D +, &
      E (, &
      F *,
 # &  G -, &
      H +, &
      I (, &
      J +,