Hi,

I have a file that is a few hundred lines long.  Sometimes I need to
comment out all of the lines in the file by placing a "#" charager at
the beginning of each line.

I'm sure there is a single command that I can run from the shell or
from vi to do this for me.

What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?

Thanks for your help.

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mike said the following, on 10/07/04 14:53:
> Hi,
>
> I have a file that is a few hundred lines long.  Sometimes I need to
> comment out all of the lines in the file by placing a "#" charager at
> the beginning of each line.
>
> I'm sure there is a single command that I can run from the shell or
> from vi to do this for me.
>
> What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?
>

In vi or vim, hit ':' to enter an editor command. then:
1,$s/^/#/

(The '^' is the meta-character for the beginning of the line.)

--
Rich Gibbs
rgibbs@alumni.princeton.edu

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On 2004-10-07, mike wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a file that is a few hundred lines long.  Sometimes I need to
> comment out all of the lines in the file by placing a "#" charager at
> the beginning of each line.
>
> I'm sure there is a single command that I can run from the shell or
> from vi to do this for me.
>
> What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?

sed 's/^/#/' FILE > NEWFILE


--
Chris F.A. Johnson                  http://cfaj.freeshell.org/shell
 ========================================
===========================
My code (if any) in this post is copyright 2004, Chris F.A. Johnson
and may be copied under the terms of the GNU General Public License

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In article <416597f6@news101.his.com>, Rich Gibbs wrote:
> mike said the following, on 10/07/04 14:53: 
>
> In vi or vim, hit ':' to enter an editor command. then:
>       1,$s/^/#/
>
> (The '^' is the meta-character for the beginning of the line.)

This can be simplified to:

:%s/^/#/

The '%' indicating "all lines", but faster to type than "1,$"...

And conversely you can uncomment the whole file with:

:%s/^#//

Kevin

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mike wrote:
> What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?

Well, a simple way in vi:
:%s/^/#/g

You could do it with a PERL (or shell?) script too, if you've got more
than one file to do.

Cheers,
Greg.

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2004-10-07, 20:46(+00), Kevin Collins:
[...]
> This can be simplified to:
>
> :%s/^/#/

This can even be simplified to:

:%s/^/#

With vim, you can use visual block selection. In normal mode:
gg<Ctrl-V>GI#<Cr>

(where <Ctrl-V> is pressing Control+V, and <Cr> is pressing
return)

> The '%' indicating "all lines", but faster to type than "1,$"...
>
> And conversely you can uncomment the whole file with:
>
> :%s/^#//

With visual block selection:

gg<Ctrl-V>Gd

--
Stephane

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michael_matthes@yahoo.com (mike) wrote in message news:

>
> I have a file that is a few hundred lines long.  Sometimes I need to
> comment out all of the lines in the file by placing a "#" charager at
> the beginning of each line.
>
> I'm sure there is a single command that I can run from the shell or
> from vi to do this for me.
>
> What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?
>

On the colon prompt within 'vi'

g/^/s//#/

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Thanks everyone.  Your suggestions work great.

michael_matthes@yahoo.com (mike) wrote in message news:<5145db7d.0410071053.13d5313d@posting
.google.com>...
> Hi,
>
> I have a file that is a few hundred lines long.  Sometimes I need to
> comment out all of the lines in the file by placing a "#" charager at
> the beginning of each line.
>
> I'm sure there is a single command that I can run from the shell or
> from vi to do this for me.
>
> What command will prefix every line in a file with a "#" charater?
>
> Thanks for your help.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

sharma__r@hotmail.com (rakesh sharma) wrote in message news:<ed24e4cf.0410080220.70e1f11f@po
sting.google.com>...
> michael_matthes@yahoo.com (mike) wrote in message news:
> 
>
> On the colon prompt within 'vi'
>
>      g/^/s//#/

With PERL you can do like this.

perl -i -npe 's/^/#/'  PERL -i -npe 's/^/#/'

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sharma__r@hotmail.com (rakesh sharma) wrote in message news:<ed24e4cf.0410080220.70e1f11f@po
sting.google.com>...
> michael_matthes@yahoo.com (mike) wrote in message news:
> 
>
> On the colon prompt within 'vi'
>
>      g/^/s//#/

with perl
perl -i -npe 's/^/#/'  <file Name>

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