Inserting a column of text into a file

[TheJuiceman]

Hey everyone,

What would be the easiest way for me to insert a column of text into the beginning of a file? Basically, I'm wanting to do the following:

cat file:

this is my text
this is line 2
this is line 3

change to:

insert this is my text
insert this is line 2
insert this is line 3

Thanks for the help.

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

so many solutions...
Most unix folks will probably propose 'sed'.
I just pick awk or perl

awk '{print "insert " $0}' file

or with perl and replace in-place

perl -pie "$_ = "insert " . $_" file

fwiw,
Hein.

[TheJuiceman]

Great answer. Thanks a million!!!