Usage of sed(stream editor)

Question

I have a file containing text

**This is bold text** 
*This is italicized text*

I wish to convert the above into

  \textbf{This is bold text}
  \emph{This is italicized text}

using stream editor(sed). Kindly guide me on this matter.

I have used this code

sed -i 's/\*\*\(.*\)\*\*/\\textbf{\1}/g' SampleCode 

and it works like a charm

Thanks from Google group

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to invent new Pandoc.
Instead:

1. Install Pandoc:

   sudo apt-get install pandoc
   

2. Create input file:

   $ cat << EOF > file.md
   **This is bold text** 
   *This is italicized text*
   EOF
   

3. Run conversion from Markdown to LaTeX:

   pandoc file.md -o file.tex
   

4. Enjoy the result:

   $ cat file.tex 
   \textbf{This is bold text} \emph{This is italicized text}
   

Answer 2

This is the simple answer:

echo '**This is bold text**' | sed -r 's/\*\*(.+)\*\*/\\textbf{\1}/'
echo '*This is italicized text*' | sed -r 's/\*(.+)\*/\\emph{\1}/'

Most important thing is to understand regular expressions. There are several online regex testers where you can experiment with regex.

Here is a very good explanation of sed. https://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html