sed: Remove All Digits / Input From Input

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Q. How do I remove all digits or number from my text file or input using sed command?

A. You need to use regular expression to remove digits or number from input. For example, ‘s/[0-9]*//g’ will remove all numbers from the input.

Remove all digits

Type the following command:
$ echo 'This is a test 12335 and 669384 535xy4' | sed 's/[0-9]*//g'
Sample output:

This is a test  and  xy

You can remove all digits from a text file:
$ sed 's/[0-9]*//g' input.txt
$ sed 's/[0-9]*//g' input.txt > output.txt

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. He has worked with global clients and in various industries, including IT, education, defense and space research, and the nonprofit sector. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

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6 comment

  4. Hi!
    I’m doing this:

    echo 'something=1234
something=12345
andsomething=1234&somethingelse&something=1234
something=2345' | sed 's/something=1234[^0-9]/something=9999/g'

    The output is :

    something=1234
something=12345
andsomething=9999&somethingelse&something=1234
something=2345

    And what I’m trying to get is :

    something=9999
something=12345
andsomething=9999&somethingelse&something=9999
something=2345

    Why isn’t it working when the pattern is at the end of the line ? What a pain….
    Help, anyone ?

    Reply Report comment

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