[SOLVED] Unix; command line to remove all lines containing substring from file

Issue

I would like to remove all lines containing a ' MCA: ' substring from /var/log/messages using a command line statement.

I tried sed but can not get it to work; sed -i '/ MCA: /' /var/log/messages #results in; #sed: 1 "/ MCA: /": command expected

does anyone know how to do this? does not have to be sed

Solution

You are looking to delete entries and so need to add /d.

sed '/MCA\:/d' /var/log/messages

This will output the modified file to screen

Once you are happy, run:

sed -i '/MCA\:/d' /var/log/messages

To commit the changes to the file.

Answered By - Raman Sailopal

Answer Checked By - David Goodson (WPSolving Volunteer)