Highest scored 'sed' questions

913 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 ...

terdon♦

215k

asked Feb 1, 2014 at 17:05

410 votes

2 answers

1.8m 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 ...

shell-script text-processing sed

roo

4,261

asked Oct 5, 2014 at 5:25

384 votes

18 answers

495k 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 ...

sed regular-expression utilities

Belmin Fernandez

8,517

asked Dec 7, 2011 at 18:03

369 votes

4 answers

623k 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 ...

shell-script sed quoting

detly

4,580

asked Feb 28, 2012 at 4:42

194 votes

4 answers

184k 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 ...

bash command-line sed command

Daniel Jonsson

2,085

asked Jun 22, 2013 at 16:36

186 votes

7 answers

565k 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]]></...

sed regular-expression quoting

Harry Muscle

2,097

asked Jun 7, 2013 at 21:33

180 votes

6 answers

617k 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 ...

text-processing sed grep

MaQleod

2,394

asked Nov 7, 2011 at 23:18

156 votes

11 answers

441k 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

shell-script sed ksh

kickass13

1,633

asked Oct 16, 2013 at 0:22

139 votes

15 answers

144k 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 ...

shell-script text-processing sed url

DisplayName

10.6k

asked Oct 4, 2014 at 13:13

134 votes

15 answers

361k 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 ...

text-processing sed

Manolo

1,477

asked Nov 8, 2013 at 11:31

132 votes

14 answers

31k 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&...

text-processing sed large-files

Christos Baziotis

1,447

asked Dec 29, 2017 at 14:58

122 votes

3 answers

449k 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: ...

text-processing sed

Javier Villanueva

1,517

asked Mar 24, 2014 at 14:46

111 votes

7 answers

201k 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: ...

shell text-processing sed tcsh tr

JigarGandhi

4,380

asked Dec 5, 2014 at 7:32

110 votes

7 answers

69k 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, ...

grep sed awk

Macha

3,640

asked Sep 25, 2010 at 18:04

109 votes

11 answers

297k 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 ...

sed rename mv

Leon Francis Shelhamer

asked Dec 19, 2014 at 21:15

105 votes

8 answers

276k 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?

sed

user2362

asked Sep 6, 2009 at 14:42

97 votes

5 answers

237k 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 ...

text-processing sed awk replace

jakub.g

2,853

asked Nov 19, 2012 at 16:41

94 votes

7 answers

314k 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:...

text-processing sed aix

WernerCD

1,184

asked Aug 19, 2011 at 14:45

90 votes

5 answers

96k 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 ...

osx sed standard

Peter Grill

1,393

asked May 24, 2011 at 18:16

84 votes

7 answers

238k 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 | ...

bash shell sed awk grep

dmgl

973

asked Jun 25, 2014 at 10:38

84 votes

6 answers

379k 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 '{...

shell sed awk

user70573

1,079

asked Jun 13, 2014 at 4:21

83 votes

13 answers

443k 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": [],...

text-processing sed awk json

user3086014

931

asked Mar 27, 2014 at 5:01

82 votes

3 answers

169k 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 ...

sed io-redirection

Folaht

1,878

asked May 16, 2016 at 9:42

80 votes

12 answers

144k 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 ...

text-processing sed grep

loganaayahee

999

asked Nov 23, 2012 at 7:17

77 votes

6 answers

186k 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 ...

text-processing sed

mtk

24.2k

asked Oct 24, 2012 at 14:37

77 votes

2 answers

201k 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 ...

sed awk

krypto

871

asked Apr 2, 2013 at 4:51

75 votes

9 answers

244k 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 ...

sed

Jim

8,790

asked Feb 12, 2014 at 20:08

71 votes

4 answers

97k 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/'

linux shell text sed command

Howard

857

asked Mar 1, 2012 at 8:31

67 votes

1 answer

202k 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'

sed

Tyilo

5,441

asked Jul 15, 2012 at 21:36

66 votes

9 answers

262k 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 ...

sed

Michael Durrant

37.9k

asked Mar 25, 2013 at 15:57

62 votes

2 answers

207k 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" ...

bash sed quoting

devopsfun

1,207

asked Jun 24, 2015 at 13:20

62 votes

4 answers

45k 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 ...

sed awk date

easl

1,888

asked Jun 14, 2013 at 7:15

61 votes

10 answers

93k 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 ...

sed osx regular-expression

iconoclast

8,423

asked Jul 18, 2014 at 14:15

58 votes

3 answers

123k 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 ...

sed

Melab

3,418

asked Feb 16, 2016 at 17:59

56 votes

6 answers

21k 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?

vim sed regular-expression

Andrew Bolster

845

asked May 7, 2011 at 20:19

53 votes

11 answers

95k 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-...

text-processing awk sed perl

user1228191

771

asked Feb 28, 2012 at 5:38

53 votes

7 answers

18k 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 ...

shell sed freebsd gnu portability

Red

1,352

asked Sep 29, 2013 at 23:31

52 votes

6 answers

80k 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 '...

shell sed regular-expression

Gregg Leventhal

6,972

asked Jul 19, 2014 at 2:03

52 votes

3 answers

141k 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 ...

text-processing awk sed grep

Spike

909

asked Oct 16, 2015 at 21:56

51 votes

3 answers

155k 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

sed

Benoit Mrx

621

asked Nov 19, 2014 at 14:58

51 votes

1 answer

107k 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 ...

find sed osx

Amir Afghani

6,593

asked Apr 18, 2012 at 18:59

50 votes

4 answers

69k 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) ...

shell-script shell text-processing awk sed

Nainita

2,386

asked Aug 10, 2015 at 3:23

49 votes

3 answers

56k 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/)....

sed

Michael Durrant

37.9k

asked Oct 24, 2013 at 14:45

49 votes

3 answers

104k views

Join multiple sed commands in one script for processing CSV file

Having a CSV file like this: HEADER "first, column"|"second "some random quotes" column"|"third ol' column" FOOTER and looking for result like: HEADER first, column|second "some random quotes" ...

sed csv

Bor

703

asked Sep 12, 2015 at 12:36

47 votes

3 answers

101k 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 ( ...

text-processing sed

maihabunash

6,603

asked Mar 3, 2015 at 11:47

47 votes

9 answers

142k 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 ...

shell sed awk grep pipe

Nainita

2,386

asked Jun 11, 2015 at 18:25

46 votes

1 answer

60k views

How to replace a left parenthesis with sed?

I have to replace ( with some character in my file, and I can't do it. \( is used for grouping in sed and when I used \\( with sed, it treated it as \( character not as just (. It seems like a tricky ...

sed

dwwdw

865

asked Feb 8, 2013 at 18:16

46 votes

1 answer

69k views

Delete specific line number(s) from a text file using sed?

I want to delete one or more specific line numbers from a file. How would I do this using sed?

linux sed

Justin Ethier

16.2k

asked Aug 20, 2012 at 21:18

45 votes

4 answers

15k views

Reverse grepping

Let's say, I have a really big text file (about 10.000.000 lines). I need to grep it from the end and save result to a file. What's the most efficient way to accomplish task?

command-line sed awk grep efficiency

user78433

asked Jul 23, 2014 at 11:58

44 votes

13 answers

38k views

Addition with 'sed'

I am trying to perform a mathematical operation with sed, but it continues to treat my variables as strings. The input is of this kind: $ echo 12 | sed 's/[0-9]*/&+3/' $ 12+3 I'd like to have 15 ...

sed math

Luigi Tiburzi

837

asked Apr 20, 2012 at 10:50

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