0,0,0,DP=1,1,1,1,MQ=2,2,2 0,0,0,DP=1;1;1;1;MQ=2,2,2 sed -r 's/DP.*MQ/n&n/;h;y/,/;/;G;s/.*n(.*)n.*n(.*)n.*n/21/' file sed -r 's/DP=[^=]*MQ=/n&n/;h;y/,/;/;G;s/.*n(.*)n.*n(.*)n.*n/21/' file sed -r '/DP=[^=]*MQ=/{s//n&n/;h;y/,/;/;G;s/.*n(.*)n.*n(.*)n.*n/21/}' file sed -r 's/(.*DP=)(.*)(MQ=.*)/echo -n 1;echo -n 2 |tr "," ";"; echo -n 3/ge' input kent$ sed -r 's/(.*DP=)(.*)(MQ=.*)/echo -n 1;echo -n 2 |tr "," ";"; echo -n 3/ge' <<<"0,0,0,DP=1,1,1,1,MQ=2,2,2" 0,0,0,DP=1;1;1;1;MQ=2,2,2 awk -F"=" '{gsub(",",";",$2); $1 = $1; print $1"="$2"="$3}' temp.txt awk -F"=" '{OFS="=";gsub(",",";",$2)}1' > echo "0,0,0,DP=1,1,1,1,MQ=2,2,2" | awk -F"=" '{OFS="=";gsub(",",";",$2)}1' 0,0,0,DP=1;1;1;1;MQ=2,2,2 perl -plne '$_=~/DP=(.*)MQ/;$a=$1;$a=~s/,/;/g;$_=~s/(.*DP=).*(MQ.*$)/$1$a$2/g' > echo "0,0,0,DP=1,1,1,1,MQ=2,2,2" | perl -plne '$_=~/DP=(.*)MQ/;$a=$1;$a=~s/,/;/g;$_=~s/(.*DP=).*(MQ.*$)/$1$a$2/g' 0,0,0,DP=1;1;1;1;MQ=2,2,2 perl -F"=" -ane '$F[1]=~s/,/;/g;print join "=",@F' > echo "0,0,0,DP=1,1,1,1,MQ=2,2,2" | perl -F"=" -ane '$F[1]=~s/,/;/g;print join "=",@F' 0,0,0,DP=1;1;1;1;MQ=2,2,2