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Sed 2020- icon- bg-red-400 [Sed]

12-27 sed editor replace text utility Linux (https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/sed.html)
10:34:08 Command is a stream editor, this sed cheat sheet contains sed
-0800 commands and some common sed tricks.

Getting started {.cols-3}

Sed Usage
Syntax

$ sed [options] command [input-file]

With pipeline

$ cat report.txt | sed 's/Nick/John/g'

$ echo '123abc' | sed 's/[0-9]+//g'

Option Examples {.col-span-2}

Option Example Description

-i sed -ibak 's/On/Off/' php.ini Backup and modify input file directly

-E sed -E 's/[0-9]+//g' input-file Use extended regular expressions

-n sed -n '3 p' config.conf Suppress default pattern space printing

-f sed -f script.sed config.conf Execute sed script file

-e sed -e 'command1' -e 'command2' input-file Execute multiple sed commands

{.show-header}

Multiple commands

$ echo "hello world" | sed -e 's/h/H/g' -e 's/w/W/g'

Hello World

Use -e to execute multiple sed commands

Sed script

$ echo 's/h/H/g' >> hello.sed

$ echo 's/w/W/g' >> hello.sed
$ echo "hello world" | sed -f hello.sed
Hello World

Use -f to execute sed script file

Examples

$ sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt

$ sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt > new.txt

$ sed 's/old/new/g' -i file.txt

$ sed 's/old/new/g' -i.backup file.txt

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See: Sed examples

Sed commands {.cols-3}

Commands {.col-span-2}

Command Example Description

p sed -n '1,4 p' input.txt Print lines 1-4

p sed -n -e '1,4 p' -e '6,7 p' input.txt Print lines 1-4 and 6-7

d sed '1,4 d' input.txt Print lines except 1-4

w sed -n '1,4 w output.txt' input.txt Write pattern space to file

a sed '2 a new-line' input.txt Append line after

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

{.show-header}

Space commands

Command Description

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

See also: File spacing

Flags

$ sed 's/old/new/[flags]' [input-file]

Flag Description

g Global substitution

1,2... Substitute the nth occurrence

p Print only the substituted line

w Write only the substituted line to a file

I Ignore case while searching

e Substitute and execute in the command line

Loops commands

Command Description

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)

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 Command Description

N Append next line to pattern space

P Print 1st line in multi-line

D Delete 1st line in multi-line

Misc Flags

Flag Description

`/ ^ @ ! #`

& Gets the matched pattern

( ) \1 \2 \3 Group using ( and ) .

Use \1 , \2 in replacement to refer the group

Sed examples {.cols-3}

Replacing text {.row-span-2}

Replace all occurrences of a string

$ sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt

Replace only the nth occurrence of a string

$ sed 's/old/new/2' file.txt

Replace replace a string only on the 5th line

$ sed '5 s/old/new/' file.txt

Replace "world" with "universe" but only if the line begins with "hello"

$ sed '/hello/s/world/universe/' file.txt

Remove "" from the end of each line

$ sed 's/\\$//' file.txt

Remove all whitespace from beginning of each line

$ sed 's/^\s*//' file.txt

Remove comments. Even those that are at the end of a line

$ sed 's/#.*$//' file.txt

Search for text

Search for a string and only print the lines that were matched

$ sed -n '/hello/p' file.txt

Case insensitive search

$ sed -n '/hello/Ip' file.txt

Search for a string but only output lines that do not match

$ sed -n '/hello/!p' file.txt

Appending lines
Append line after line 2

$ sed '2a Text after line 2' file.txt

Append line at the end of the file

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$ sed '$a THE END!' file.txt

Append line after every 3rd line starting from line 3

$ sed '3~3a Some text' file.txt

Numbering {.col-span-2}
Number line of a file (simple left alignment)

$ sed = file.txt | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'

Number line of a file (number on left, right-aligned)

$ sed = file.txt | sed 'N; s/^/ /; s/ *\(.\{6,\}\)\n/\1 /'

Number line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank

$ sed '/./=' file.txt | sed '/./N; s/\n/ /'

Count lines (emulates "wc -l")

$ sed -n '$='

Prepending lines
Insert text before line 5

$ sed '5i line number five' file.txt

Insert "Example: " before each line that contains "hello"

$ sed '/hello/i Example: ' file.txt

Deleting lines
Delete line 5-7 in file

$ sed '5,7d' file.txt

Delete every 2nd line starting with line 3

$ sed '3~2d' file.txt

Delete the last line in file

$ sed '$d' file.txt

Delete lines starting with "Hello"

$ sed '/^Hello/d' file.txt

Delete all empty lines

$ sed '/^$/d' file.txt

Delete lines starting with "#"

$ sed '/^#/d' file.txt

File spacing
Double space

$ sed G

Delete all blank lines and double space

$ sed '/^$/d;G'

Triple space a file

$ sed 'G;G'

Undo double-spacing

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$ sed 'n;d'

Insert a blank line above line which matches "regex"

$ sed '/regex/{x;p;x;}'

Insert a blank line below line which matches "regex"

$ sed '/regex/G'

Insert a blank line around line which matches "regex"

$ sed '/regex/{x;p;x;G;}'

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