Questions tagged [sed]
sed is a command-line stream editor for filtering and transforming text.
7,216
questions
947
votes
10
answers
1.8m
views
How can I replace a string in a file(s)?
Replacing strings in files based on certain search criteria is a very common task. How can I
replace string foo with bar in all files in the current directory?
do the same recursively for sub ...
- 235k
444
votes
2
answers
1.9m
views
Using 'sed' to find and replace [duplicate]
I know this question has probably been answered before. I have seen many threads about this in various places, but the answers are usually hard to extract for me. I am looking for help with an ...
- 4,601
431
votes
18
answers
568k
views
How can I use sed to replace a multi-line string?
I've noticed that, if I add \n to a pattern for substituting using sed, it does not match. Example:
$ cat > alpha.txt
This is
a test
Please do not
be alarmed
$ sed -i'.original' 's/a test\nPlease ...
- 9,367
401
votes
4
answers
726k
views
What characters do I need to escape when using sed in a sh script?
Take the following script:
#!/bin/sh
sed 's/(127\.0\.1\.1)\s/\1/' [some file]
If I try to run this in sh (dash here), it'll fail because of the parentheses, which need to be escaped. But I don't ...
- 5,030
224
votes
4
answers
220k
views
What does <<< mean? [duplicate]
What does <<< mean? Here is an example:
$ sed 's/a/b/g' <<< "aaa"
bbb
Is it something general that works with more Linux commands?
It looks like it's feeding the sed program with ...
- 2,395
219
votes
7
answers
660k
views
Using sed to find and replace complex string (preferrably with regex)
I have a file with the following contents:
<username><![CDATA[name]]></username>
<password><![CDATA[password]]></password>
<dbname><![CDATA[name]]></...
- 2,437
202
votes
6
answers
688k
views
Return only the portion of a line after a matching pattern
So pulling open a file with cat and then using grep to get matching lines only gets me so far when I am working with the particular log set that I am dealing with. It need a way to match lines to a ...
- 2,614
170
votes
11
answers
467k
views
Delete First line of a file
How can I delete the first line of a file and keep the changes?
I tried this but it erases the whole content of the file.
$sed 1d file.txt > file.txt
- 1,773
158
votes
16
answers
434k
views
How to insert text before the first line of a file?
I've been looking around sed command to add text into a file in a specific line.
This works adding text after line 1:
sed '1 a\
But I want to add it before line 1. It would be:
sed '0 a\
but I get ...
- 1,717
154
votes
19
answers
161k
views
Decoding URL encoding (percent encoding)
I want to decode URL encoding, is there any built-in tool for doing this or could anyone provide me with a sed code that will do this?
I did search a bit through unix.stackexchange.com and on the ...
- 11.5k
136
votes
4
answers
497k
views
How to insert text after a certain string in a file?
Right now I'm using
echo "Hello World" >> file.txt
to append some text to a file but I also need to add text below a certain string let's say [option], is it possible with sed?
EG:
...
- 1,667
133
votes
14
answers
33k
views
Replace string in a huge (70GB), one line, text file
I have a huge (70GB), one line, text file and I want to replace a string (token) in it.
I want to replace the token <unk>, with another dummy token (glove issue).
I tried sed:
sed 's/<unk&...
- 1,457
126
votes
12
answers
357k
views
how to rename multiple files by replacing string in file name? this string contains a "#"
https://serverfault.com/questions/70939/how-to-replace-a-text-string-in-multiple-files-in-linux
https://serverfault.com/questions/228733/how-to-rename-multiple-files-by-replacing-word-in-file-name
...
Leon Francis Shelhamer
121
votes
7
answers
213k
views
Convert file contents to lower case
I have temp file with some lower-case and upper-case contents.
Input
Contents of my temp file:
hi
Jigar
GANDHI
jiga
I want to convert all upper to lower.
Command
I tried the following command:
...
- 4,830
114
votes
8
answers
314k
views
SED: insert text after the last line?
This sed command inserts a tag to the beginning of a file:
sed -i "1s/^/<?php /" file
How can I insert something to the end of each file with sed?
user2362
112
votes
7
answers
71k
views
Is there a basic tutorial for grep, awk and sed? [closed]
I've been a Linux user for a while, and I've a pretty decent understanding of most the common command line utilities. However, ones that come up and up again in relation to programming are grep, awk, ...
- 3,770
107
votes
7
answers
355k
views
How to strip multiple spaces to one using sed?
sed on AIX is not doing what I think it should.
I'm trying to replace multiple spaces with a single space in the output of IOSTAT:
# iostat
System configuration: lcpu=4 drives=8 paths=2 vdisks=0
tty:...
- 1,314
105
votes
6
answers
449k
views
How to use a shell command to only show the first column and last column in a text file?
I need some help to figure out how to use the sed command to only show the first column and last column in a text file. Here is what I have so far for column 1:
cat logfile | sed 's/\|/ /'|awk '{...
- 1,289
105
votes
5
answers
112k
views
Differences between sed on Mac OSX and other "standard" sed?
I am having some issues in using an answer provided on this site for this question about a sed command to replace a blank line with two other lines of content, and it was brought up if the sed command ...
- 1,583
101
votes
5
answers
246k
views
Remove line containing certain string and the following line
I use this
cat foo.txt | sed '/bar/d'
to remove lines containing the string bar in the file.
I would like however to remove those lines and the line directly after it. Preferably in sed, awk or ...
- 3,153
95
votes
7
answers
251k
views
How to read first and last line from cat output?
I have text file. Task - get first and last line from file after
$ cat file | grep -E "1|2|3|4" | commandtoprint
$ cat file
1
2
3
4
5
Need this without cat output (only 1 and 5).
~$ cat file | ...
- 1,083
94
votes
3
answers
207k
views
Can sed save its output to a file?
> can do it.
echo "text" > file
tee can do it.
echo "test" | tee file
Can sed do it without using either of the above? Is it possible to save the output of a sed command to a file without ...
- 972
91
votes
12
answers
171k
views
How to print all lines after a match up to the end of the file?
Input file1 is:
dog 123 4335
cat 13123 23424
deer 2131 213132
bear 2313 21313
I give the match the pattern from in other file ( like dog 123 4335 from file2).
I match the pattern of the line is ...
- 1,109
89
votes
9
answers
279k
views
Can sed replace new line characters?
Is there an issue with sed and new line character?
I have a file test.txt with the following contents
aaaaa
bbbbb
ccccc
ddddd
The following does not work:
sed -r -i 's/\n/,/g' test.txt
...
- 9,780
89
votes
13
answers
513k
views
How to parse JSON with shell scripting in Linux?
I have a JSON output from which I need to extract a few parameters in Linux.
This is the JSON output:
{
"OwnerId": "121456789127",
"ReservationId": "r-48465168",
"Groups": [],...
- 991
86
votes
2
answers
231k
views
Replacing string based on line number
I have a situation where i want to replace a particular string in many files
Replace a string AAA with another string BBB but there are lot of strings starting with AAA or ending in AAA ,and i want ...
- 961
84
votes
6
answers
225k
views
Delete last line from the file
I use sed to quickly delete lines with specific position as
sed '1d'
sed '5d'
But, what if I want to delete the last line of the file and I don't know the count of lines (I know I can get that ...
- 26.9k
83
votes
4
answers
131k
views
What is the purpose of -e in sed command?
I can't find any documentation about the sed -e switch, for simple replace, do I need it?
e.g.
sed 's/foo/bar/'
VS
sed -e 's/foo/bar/'
- 977
77
votes
2
answers
250k
views
Slash and backslash in sed [duplicate]
I want to use sed to change a slash into a backslash and a slash, i.e. / -> \/. But it does not work. Here a small example:
#!/bin/bash
TEST=/etc/hallo
echo $TEST
echo $TEST | sed "s/hallo/bello/g"
...
- 1,377
71
votes
4
answers
88k
views
How to add line numbers in every line using shell command?
My file,
PSS-A (Primary A)
PSS-B (Primary B)
PSS-C (Primary C)
PSS-D (Primary D)
PSS-E (Primary E)
PSS-F (Primary F)
PSS-G (Primary G)
PSS-H (Primary H)
PSS-I (Primary I)
SPARE (SPARE)
...
- 2,732
70
votes
1
answer
230k
views
Only return the matched string in sed [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Extracting a regex matched with 'sed' without printing the surrounding characters
How do I make this only print test:
echo "atestb" | sed -n 's/\(test\)/\1/p'
- 5,911
67
votes
9
answers
263k
views
How can I use variables in the LHS and RHS of a sed substitution?
I want to do:
cat update_via_sed.sh | sed 's/old_name/new_name/' > new_update_via_sed.sh
in my program.
But I want to use variables, e.g.
old_run='old_name_952'
new_run='old_name_953'
I have ...
- 41.3k
66
votes
6
answers
101k
views
Regex alternation/or operator (foo|bar) in GNU or BSD Sed
I cannot seem to make it work. GNU sed documentation says to escape the pipe, but that doesn't work, nor does using a straight pipe without the escape. Adding parens makes no difference.
$ echo '...
- 7,490
66
votes
6
answers
25k
views
Replacing Multiple blank lines with a single blank line in vim / sed
Question more or less says it all. I'm aware that /^$/d will remove all blank lines, but I can't see how to say 'replace two or more blank lines with a single blank line'
Any ideas?
- 945
65
votes
4
answers
50k
views
Removing leading zeros from date output
I made an alias of the date command to display date in the following format:
2013.06.14.12.10.02
using this command:
alias date = date +"%Y.%m.%d.%H.%M.%S"
Everything works great, except I want ...
- 1,978
64
votes
3
answers
134k
views
sed capture groups not working
I have a string of the format [0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]. I need to extract the first, second, and third numbers separately. As I understand it, capture groups should be capable of this. I should be able ...
- 3,838
63
votes
1
answer
129k
views
find & sed (search and replace)
I'm using the following command on my mac:
$find . -name “*.java” -exec sed -i ’s/foo/bar/g’ {} \;
and it seems to have no effect.
I have two files in the directory that end in .java, which both ...
- 7,103
62
votes
10
answers
104k
views
Simple sed replacement of tabs mysteriously failing
This ought to be really simple, but for some reason it is not working:
sed -i.bak -E 's/\t/ /' file.txt
Instead of replacing tab characters, it's replacing t characters. I've tried every variation ...
- 9,077
59
votes
7
answers
20k
views
How can I achieve portability with sed -i (in-place editing)?
I'm writing shell scripts for my server, which is a shared hosting running FreeBSD. I also want to be able to test them locally, on my PC running Linux. Hence, I'm trying to write them in a portable ...
- 1,422
59
votes
3
answers
176k
views
How to grep lines between start and end pattern? [duplicate]
I have a file which is having following content:
zdk
aaa
b12
cdn
dke
kdn
Input1: aaa and cdn
Output 1:
aaa
b12
cdn
Input 2: zdk and dke
Output 2:
zdk
aaa
b12
cdn
dke
I could use below commands ...
- 989
57
votes
11
answers
109k
views
How to insert the content of a file into another file before a pattern (marker)?
File1 contents:
line1-file1 "1"
line2-file1 "2"
line3-file1 "3"
line4-file1 "4"
File2 contents:
line1-file2 "25"
line2-file2 "24"
Pointer-file2 "23"
line4-...
- 831
57
votes
9
answers
127k
views
Using sed to convert newlines into spaces
Say I have a shell variable $string that holds some text with several newlines, e.g.:
string="this
is
a test"
I would like to convert this string into a new string new_string where all line breaks ...
- 40.3k
57
votes
3
answers
188k
views
Why does sed outputs "char 53: unterminated `s' command"
Why this bash script
ssh $SERVER bash <<EOF
sed -i "s/database_name: [^ ]*/database_name: kartable_$ME" $PARAM_FILE
exit
EOF
output ->
sed: -e expression #1, char 53: unterminated `s' command
- 681
56
votes
3
answers
71k
views
sed - how to do several consecutive substitutions but process file only once?
If I am doing several substitutions which need to be consecutive, e.g.
sed -i '/^[[:space:]]*browser.*\.should/s/browser/expect(browser/' t1_spec.rb
sed -i '/expect(browser.*\.should/s/\.should/)....
- 41.3k
54
votes
3
answers
115k
views
How do I replace the last occurrence of a character in a string using sed?
How do I replace only the last occurrence of "-" in a string with a space using sed?
For example:
echo $MASTER_DISK_RELEASE
swp-RedHat-Linux-OS-5.5.0.0-03
but I want to get the following output ( ...
- 7,001
52
votes
4
answers
95k
views
sed - replace string with file contents
I have two files: file1 and file2.
file1 has the following contents:
---
host: "localhost"
port: 3000
reporter_type: "zookeeper"
zk_hosts:
- "localhost:2181"
file2 contains an IP ...
- 521
51
votes
5
answers
92k
views
How to "grep" for line length in a given range?
NOTE: This question is the complement of this Q&A: How to "grep" for line length *not* in a given range?
I need to get only the lines from a textfile (a wordlist, separated with newline)...
user90825
51
votes
3
answers
132k
views
Removing all spaces, tabs, newlines, etc from a variable?
This is the error I am getting and it's failing because of a variable whose value is supposed to be 2 (I am getting this using a select * from tabel).
I am getting spaces in that variable.
+ 0 !=
...
- 7,825
50
votes
4
answers
224k
views
How to use Sed to replace all characters before colon?
How do I replace the following string
hd_ma_prod_customer_ro:*:123456789:john.doe
with
john.doe
Basically I need to look for the last colon (:) and delete everything before and including it.
- 501
49
votes
9
answers
154k
views
How do I delete the first n lines and last line of a file using shell commands?
I have a file named Element_query containing the result of a query :
SQL> select count (*) from element;
[Output of the query which I want to keep in my file]
SQL> spool off;
I want to ...
- 2,732