How to Use a Multidimensional Array to SED?

[ecastro]

TL;DR

How to apply each element of a multi-dimensional array to an SED in Bash script?

I have a .dat file which contains an $m \times n$ (specifically, a $9 \times 2$) array and I have a file which has this kind of format,

variable_x xx
variable_y yy

where xx and yy are numbers (I'll call this file the input_file). This file serves as an input to an external program, which I shall insert into a for-loop. So, in every iteration, the input_file will have different values and will be processed by the external program. However, the external program needs to be run in a Bash script, which I am not familiar.

I have known that by simply replacing xx and yy by a string and saving it into a sort of template input_file I could use SED to replace the string by the elements of the .dat file. My currently working example would be:

input=`cat dat_file.dat`

for ((i=0;i<=9;i++)); do
    sed "s/xx/${input[$i, 1]}/" -e "s/yy/${input[$i, 2]}/" template_file > input_file
    external_program < input_file >> output_file # calls the external program and returns the output file
done

But I am running through an error in SED saying that I have an unterminated 's'. What am I doing wrong here?

Thank you in advance, and I hope I conveyed my problem clearly.

 

[Mark44]

Summary: How to apply each element of a multi-dimensional array to an SED in Bash script?

I have a .dat file which contains an $m \times n$ (specifically, a $9 \times 2$) array and I have a file which has this kind of format,

variable_x xx
variable_y yy

where xx and yy are numbers (I'll call this file the input_file). This file serves as an input to an external program, which I shall insert into a for-loop. So, in every iteration, the input_file will have different values and will be processed by the external program. However, the external program needs to be run in a Bash script, which I am not familiar.

I have known that by simply replacing xx and yy by a string and saving it into a sort of template input_file I could use SED to replace the string by the elements of the .dat file. My currently working example would be:

input=`cat dat_file.dat`

for ((i=0;i<=9;i++)); do
    sed "s/xx/${input[$i, 1]}/" -e "s/yy/${input[$i, 2]}/" template_file > input_file
    external_program < input_file >> output_file # calls the external program and returns the output file
done

But I am running through an error in SED saying that I have an unterminated 's'. What am I doing wrong here?

Thank you in advance, and I hope I conveyed my problem clearly.

The array in the input file has 9 rows, each with two numbers. The for loop in your code runs 10 times. See if changing the condition part of your loop from i <= 9 to i < 9 fixes your problem.

 

[ecastro]

The array in the input file has 9 rows, each with two numbers. The for loop in your code runs 10 times. See if changing the condition part of your loop from i <= 9 to i < 9 fixes your problem.

Unfortunately, the problem still persists.

 

[Mark44]

Another possibility is that your 2nd indexes are 1-based, but maybe they should be 0-based.

IOW, does changing
sed "s/xx/${input[$i, 1]}/" -e "s/yy/${input[$i, 2]}/"
to
sed "s/xx/${input[$i, 0]}/" -e "s/yy/${input[$i, 1]}/"
fix things?

I'm not knowledgeable with Linux or Bash, but this and my other suggested fix are things that are common to most programming languages.