I have a file containing some data as in the following example:
data1: it is my data
data2: some more data
data3: even some more data
What I want is the following output in another file:
it is my data
some more data
even some more data
Please guide me how to do it!
This should work:
sed -i .bak 's/[^:]*: *//' file
Explanation: The -i .bak will edit the file in place, and create a backup of the original called filename.bak. s/pat/replacement/ means substitute pat with replacement. [^:]*: * means match the longest string of non-: characters, followed by a : then one or more space. The final result is that it will delete everything up to the first : and following spaces.
This approach has the advantage of working with data: or foo: or whatever and will also work if you have multiple : on the same line. For example, it can deal with this:
data: a line that contains : a colon!
