topic sed new line not working in Operating System - Linux

sed new line not working

ionut_lascu — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:19:17 GMT

I want to insert in a file after #test
2lines line1 line2 sed 's/#test/&\n'line1"\n"line2'/' file

Not working.
My output:
#testnline1nline2
1
2
Sed version is 3.02
What is wrong ?

Re: sed new line not working

Fredrik.eriksson — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:04:17 GMT

Hi

sounds wierd that the \n doesn't work... it should work with any version of sed imo.

But, I'm not sure this will work since I don't have anything to test it on :P
$~> sed "/#test/ a\line1\;a\line2\" file

Otherwise this should also work:
$~> sed -e "/#test/ a\line1\" -e "/line1/ a\line2\" file

a\ is append after matched line.

Hope this helps you :)

Best regards
Fredrik Eriksson

Re: sed new line not working

ionut_lascu — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:49:17 GMT

not working.
On sed 4.02 works fine.
sed 's/#test/&\n'line1"\n"line2'/' file

On sed 3.02 \a not working.

Re: sed new line not working

Fredrik.eriksson — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:30:35 GMT

Too clarify... it's not \a, it's a\.
The part "/#test/" will search for any occurance of #test. "a\Line1" will append after the matched occurance the trailing characters that is listed after "\".

But as he said, didn't work... I tried it last night and found that \n is probably the only reasonable way unless you do 2 sed's.

$~> sed -i "/#test/ a\Line1" file.txt
$~> sed -i "/Line1/ a\Line2" file.txt

but since "-i" parameter changes the original file maybe it's better to "-e" and redirect the output to a new file like this

$~> sed -e "/#test/ a\Line1" file.txt > newfile.txt
$~> sed -i "/Line1/ a\Line2" newfile.txt

But if your version works now with \n, I would say it's simpler too use my method described above.

$~> sed -e "/#test/ a\Line1\nLine2" file.txt

Best regards
Fredrik Eriksson

Re: sed new line not working

ionut_lascu — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:20:42 GMT

$~> sed -i "/#test/ a\Line1" file.txt
sed: invalid option -- i

$~> sed -e "/#test/ a\Line1" file.txt > newfile.txt
sed: -e expression #1, char 11: Extra characters after command

My version works with \n only on 4.02 version, I need to work on another box with 3.02 sed version

Re: sed new line not working

David C. Brown — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:58:57 GMT

I have tried this on a couple of boxes here:

sed 's/#test/&\^Jline1\^Jline2/' testfile

Where it says ^J, do [CTRL+V][CTRL+J].

David