Does anyone understand sed?

[Ed]

Of all the programs on my computer, sed is the one that drives me insane every time I have to program with it. So, does anyone else have any incisive insight into it (or indeed awk)? This is what I'm trying to do:
Change a value in XML.
Eg.
Replace <example>*</example>
with <example>text</example>

[KadaverJack]

If there's only one example-tag per line:

Code: Select all

sed 's/<example>.*<\/example>/<example>text<\/example>/g'

(otherwise you have to replace .* with a more refined expression, that doesn't match </example>)

[Ed]

If there's only one example-tag per line:

Code: Select all

sed 's/<example>.*<\/example>/<example>text<\/example>/g'

(otherwise you have to replace .* with a more refined expression, that doesn't match </example>)

It worked!

Guess I owe you a drink if we ever meet in real life.