Help needed with: command a expects \ followed by text

peterv6 · Feb 2, 2011

In my .bashrc file I have the following function to remove the tabs in a file.
The filename (alogt2.pl) is passed in as the $1 parameter. I get the following error:

sed: 1: alogt2.pl command a expects \ followed by text

Code:

function fix_tabs()
{
if [ -z $1 ] ; then
     echo
     echo "SYNTAX: fix_tabs <filename>"
     echo "DESCRIPTION:  Replaces tabs with spaces."
     echo
else
    [B][COLOR="Red"]sed -i '%s/\t//g' $1[/COLOR][/B]
    echo "Tabs have been replaced" replaced                                           
fi
}

Can someone tell me how to fix this problem? I've seen that it's some kind of problem with OS X sed, but I have to think there's a way to specify these kinds of escaped characters in a sed command, otherwise OS X sed is useless!

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Help needed with: command a expects \ followed by text

peterv6

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