Scribd
Upload
346 views

Sed Cheatsheet

This document provides a cheat sheet for the sed command line utility, summarizing its options, commands, and syntax. Key points covered include substituting strings with flags like -i to modify files in-place, grouping patterns with parentheses, and commands for printing, deleting, inserting, and changing lines. Loops and branching labels are also described for multi-line processing with sed.

Uploaded by

Krishna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
346 views

Sed Cheatsheet

This document provides a cheat sheet for the sed command line utility, summarizing its options, commands, and syntax. Key points covered include substituting strings with flags like -i to modify files in-place, grouping patterns with parentheses, and commands for printing, deleting, inserting, and changing lines. Loops and branching labels are also described for multi-line processing with sed.

Uploaded by

Krishna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Sed Cheat Sheet www.thegeekstuff.

com

Sed command line options


Sed syntax: sed [options] sed-command [input-file]
-n Suppress default pattern space printing sed -n '3 p' employee.txt
-i Backup and modify input file directly sed -ibak 's/John/Johnny/' employee.txt
-f Execute sed script file sed -f script.sed employee.txt
-e Execute multiple sed commands sed -e 'command1' -e 'command2' input-file

Sed substitute command and flags


Syntax: sed 's/original-string/replacement-string/[flags]' [input-file]
g flag Global substitution sed 's/Windows/Linux/g' world.txt
1,2.. flag Substitute the nth occurrence sed 's/locate/find/2' locate.txt
p flag Print only the substituted line sed -n 's/John/Johnny/p' employee.txt
w flag Write only the substituted line to a sed -n 's/John/Johnny/w output.txt' employee.txt
file
i flag Ignore case while searching sed 's/john/Johnny/i' employee.txt
e flag Substitute and execute in the sed 's/^/ls -l /' files.txt
command line
/|^@! Substitution delimiter can be any sed 's@/usr/local/bin@/usr/bin@' path.txt
character
& Gets the matched pattern. Use this in sed 's/^.*/<&>/' employee.txt #Encloses whole
replacement string. line between < and >
\( \) Group using \( and \). Use \1, \2 in sed 's/\([^,]*\),\([^,]*\),\([^,]*\).*/\1,\3/g'
\1 \2 \3 replacement string to refer the group. employee.txt #Get only 1st and 3rd column

Sed commands
p Print pattern space sed -n '1,4 p' employee.txt
d Delete lines sed -n '1,4 d' employee.txt
w Write pattern space to file sed -n '1,4 w output.txt' employee.txt
a Append line after sed '2 a new-line' employee.txt

Sed and Awk 101 Hacks – Enhance your UNIX / Linux Life with Sed and Awk
Sed Cheat Sheet www.thegeekstuff.com

i Insert line before sed '2 i new-line' employee.txt


c Change line sed '2 c new-line' employee.txt
l Print hidden characters sed -n l employee.txt
= Print line numbers sed = employee.txt | sed '{N;s/\n/ /}'
y Change case sed 'y/abcde/ABCDE/' employee.txt
q Quit sed sed '3 q' employee.txt
r Read from file sed '$ r log.txt' employee.txt
# Comment inside sed script

Sed hold and pattern space commands


n Print pattern space, empty pattern space, and read next line.
x Swap pattern space with hold space
h Copy pattern space to hold space
H Append pattern space to hold space
g Copy hold space to pattern space
G Append hold space to pattern space

Loops and multi-line sed commands


b label Branch to a label (for looping)
t label Branch to a label only on successful substitution (for looping)
:label Label for the b and t commands (for looping)
N Append next line to pattern space
P Print 1st line in multi-line
D Delete 1st line in multi-line

Sed and Awk 101 Hacks – Enhance your UNIX / Linux Life with Sed and Awk

You might also like