Sed

Syntax

$ sed [options] command [input-file]

With pipeline

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

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

{.show-header}

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

Use -e to execute multiple sed commands

$ 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

$ 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

See: Sed examples

{.show-header}

See also: File spacing

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 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 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

Append line after line 2

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

Append line at the end of the file

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

Append line after every 3rd line starting from line 3

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

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 '$='

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

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

Double space

$ sed G

Delete all blank lines and double space

$ sed '/^$/d;G'

Triple space a file

$ sed 'G;G'

Undo double-spacing

$ 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;}'