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I am just starting out using sed and I intend to use it to extract IP addresses from ping output. Here's what I am trying to achieve exactly:

input text: 

ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy

desired output: 

192.188.2.3

command I am trying: 

echo "ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy" | sed 's:\((\(192.188.2.3\))\):\2:'

current output: 

ytmti 192.188.2.3 jjggy

Note: ytmti and jjggy are really stand-ins for text like Pinging unix.stackexchange.com and with 32 bytes of data:.

I think using awk might be a better solution for parsing ping output, but I would like to get accustomed to sed.

Raphael Ahrens
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user293496
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  • Please note that `Note:...etc` above was inserted by others and does not accurately reflect the question as it was first asked. Whether it accurately reflects op's original intent i cannot say, but it was certainly added after the question was asked. Please see [this meta question](http://meta.unix.stackexchange.com/questions/2992/how-was-my-suggested-edit-not-useful) about it. – mikeserv Jun 24 '14 at 17:45

3 Answers3

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The substitution command of sed replaces all characters matched in first section with all character of second section, so you will need .* or similar and group only the part to save, like:

echo " ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy" | sed 's:^.*(\([^)]*\).*$:\1:'

Note that I use [^)]* that avoids to hardcode the IP and generalize it for any of them. It yields:

192.188.2.3
Birei
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Using the field seperator variable in awk:

echo "ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy" | awk -F'[)(]' '{print $2}'                                                                                              
192.188.2.3
jasonwryan
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1

You could also do:

echo 'ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy' | tr -dc '0-9.'
mikeserv
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  • Read the question: “I … intend to use [sed] to extract IP addresses from ping output.” The output from `ping` commonly begins with a line something like `Pinging unix.stackexchange.com (198.252.206.140) with 32 bytes of data:`. Your answer includes in the output (a) the `32`, (b) the `.`s in the domain name, and (c) any numerals that happen to be in the domain name. – Scott - Слава Україні Jun 24 '14 at 16:19
  • @Scott - I did read the question, though I am afraid you may not have. I think you must have missed the part of the question wherein op says: *I am trying: echo " ytmti (192.188.2.3) jjggy"*. Still, it matters not. This was never intended as a practical example for how to render *any* data into an ip address, but merely as an example of what one or another tool might do with a certain example set. And so you are free to believe whatever nonsense makes you most comfortable. – mikeserv Jun 24 '14 at 16:27
  • @mikeserv while I definitely appreciate your effort, the other answers are much more useful overall since they take into account the fact that I will eventually want to extract an IP from ping. – user293496 Jun 25 '14 at 14:26
  • @user293496 we're agreed. It wasn't intended to be very practical - just to give you or anyone else an idea that there are always several ways to work through a sample set. I didn't really expect the one upvote it's got... – mikeserv Jun 25 '14 at 16:55