# If you'd like to omit non-matching lines from the result; add ';d' to the end of the expression.
sed -E 's/_meta:\d+:/_meta/g;t' <<< "{
\"webservers\": {
\"hosts\": [\"123.456.789\", \"123.987.963\"],
\"vars\": {
\"user\": \"Var Value\"
}
},
\"_meta:1:\": {
\"10.201.200.68\": {
\"host1\": \"value1\",
\"host3\": \"value3\"
}
},
\"apache\": {
\"hosts\": [\"123.456.789\", \"123.987.963\"],
\"vars\": {
\"gathering_facts\": \"no\"
}
},
\"_meta:2:\": {
\"10.201.200.54\": {
\"host1\": \"value1\",
\"ho3\": \"value3\"
}
},
\"ecs\": {
\"hosts\": [\"123.456.789\", \"123.987.963\"],
\"vars\": {
\"gathering_facts\": \"no\"
}
},
\"_meta:3:\": {
\"10.201.200.54\": {
\"host1\": \"value1\",
\"host3\": \"value3\"
}
},
}"
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for SED, please visit: https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/html_node/The-_0022s_0022-Command.html