Re: sed:awk:perl::rock:paper:chainsaw [was Re: Using .XCompose]

[Ajith R <ajithramayyan@yahoo.co.in>]

Hi,

> First, there is a somewhat specific question about unspecified
> substitutions. For all I know about these substitutions, you might
> actually need XSLT to do them properly.

The substitution that I had in mind requires referring to characters based on their unicode properties like script, block...

> I think you should absolutely use perl if it makes you happy.
> Unix has a pretty interesting collection of various small tools (which
> "do one thing and do it well" as you may hear), and shells facilitate
> hooking up their outputs and inputs. Almost as if they were made to do
> just that.

I don't prescribe to using a tool for the sake of happiness. With my limited knoweldege I want to select one that is adequate to do the job.
The subsitution that I wanted in many text files was deleting text from languages other than Malayalam,english and punctuation. This required a program that could match charcters based on their unicode character of block / script. I didn't find anything to suggest that sed could do that. May be, I didn't search properly.
Did  I miss a utility(including sed) that can do the kind of substitution I mentioned above?

Thanks,
ajith