How to truncate each directory to n chars in a path using sed/awk?

Question

For example with n being 3, p1ath/p2ath/p3ath would become p1a/p2a/p3?

I don't understand how to:

Truncate a capture group (\1, \2, etc..) using sed.
How to make the capture groups 'dynamic' rather being a set static number of capture groups?

So far I have 's/\(.*\)\//\1\//g'

Do you want only to truncate strings or rename directories, too? — Cyrus, Jun 04 '17 at 12:20
Just truncate the string. So for example using the command `echo "path1/path2/path3" | sed -e 's/\(.*\)\//\1\//g'` — Chris Stryczynski, Jun 04 '17 at 12:21

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 05 '17 at 05:55

2

With GNU sed:

echo "p1ath/p2ath/p3ath" | sed -r 's|([^/]{3})[^/]*|\1|g'

Output:

p1a/p2a/p3a

edited Jun 05 '17 at 05:55

Inian

answered Jun 04 '17 at 12:24

Cyrus

1 Answers1