sed.1 (2010 09)

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sed(1) sed(1)

NAME

sed - stream text editor

SYNOPSIS

sed [-n] script [ﬁle]...

sed [-n][-e script ]... [

-f script_ﬁle]... [ﬁle]...

DESCRIPTION

sed copies the named text ﬁles (standard input default) to the standard output, edited according to a

script containing up to 100 commands. Only complete input lines are processed. Any input text at the

end of a ﬁle that is not terminated by a new-line character is ignored.

Options

sed recognizes the following options:

-f script_file Take script from ﬁle script_ﬁle .

-e script Edit according to script . If there is just one

-e option and no -f options, the ﬂag

-e can be omitted.

-n Suppress the default output.

sed interprets all -e script and -f script_ﬁle arguments in the order given. Use caution, if mixing

-e

and -f options, to avoid unpredictable or incorrect results.

Command Scripts

A script consists of editor commands, one per line, of the following form:

[ address [ , address ]] function [ arguments ]

In normal operation,

sed cyclically copies a line of input into a pattern space (unless there is something

left after a D command), applies in sequence all commands whose addresses select that pattern space,

and, at the end of the script, copies the pattern space to the standard output (except under

-n) and

deletes the pattern space.

Some of the commands use a hold space to save all or part of the pattern space for subsequent retrieval.

Command Addresses

An address is either a decimal number that counts input lines cumulatively across ﬁles, a

$ which

addresses the last line of input, or a context address; that is, a

/regular expression /

in the style of ed(1)

modiﬁed thus:

• In a context address, the construction

\?regular expression?

, where ? is any character, is identi-

cal to

/regular expression /. Note that in the context address \xabc\xdefx, the second

stands for itself, so that the regular expression is abcxdef.

• The escape sequence

\n matches a new-line character embedded in the pattern space.

• A period (

.) matches any character except the terminal new-line of the pattern space.

• A command line with no addresses selects every pattern space.

• A command line with one address selects each pattern space that matches the address.

• A command line with two addresses selects the inclusive range from the ﬁrst pattern space that

matches the ﬁrst address through the next pattern space that matches the second (if the second

address is a number less than or equal to the line number ﬁrst selected, only one line is selected).

Thereafter the process is repeated, looking again for the ﬁrst address.

sed supports Basic Regular Expression syntax (see regexp (5)).

Editing commands can also be applied to only non-selected pattern spaces by use of the negation function

! (described below).

Command Functions

In the following list of functions, the maximum number of permissible addresses for each function is indi-

cated in parentheses. Other function elements are interpreted as follows:

text One or more lines, all but the last of which end with \ to hide the new-line.

Backslashes in text are treated like backslashes in the replacement string of an s

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1

Summary of content (4 pages)

PAGE 1
sed(1) sed(1) NAME sed - stream text editor SYNOPSIS sed [-n] script [file ]... sed [-n] [-e script ]... [-f script_file ]... [file ]... DESCRIPTION sed copies the named text file s (standard input default) to the standard output, edited according to a script containing up to 100 commands. Only complete input lines are processed. Any input text at the end of a file that is not terminated by a new-line character is ignored.
PAGE 2
sed(1) sed(1) command, and can be used to protect initial blanks and tabs against the stripping that is done on every script line. rfile Must terminate the command line, and must be preceded by exactly one blank. wfile Must terminate the command line, and must be preceded by exactly one blank. Each wfile is created before processing begins. There can be at most 10 distinct wfile arguments. sed recognizes the following functions: (1) a\ text (2) b label (2) c\ text A sA Append.
PAGE 3
sed(1) sed(1) (2) t label Test. Branch to the : command bearing the label if any substitutions have been made since the most recent reading of an input line or execution of a t. If label is empty, branch to the end of the script. (2) w wfile Write. Append the pattern space to wfile . (2) x Exchange the contents of the pattern and hold spaces. (2) y/string1 /string2 / Transform. Replace all occurrences of characters in string1 with the corresponding character in string2 .
PAGE 4
sed(1) sed(1) NLSPATH determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES. International Code Set Support Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. EXAMPLES Make a simple substitution in a file from the command line or from a shell script, changing abc to xyz: sed ’s/abc/xyz/’ file1 >file1.out Same as above but use shell or environment variables var1 and var2 in search and replacement strings: sed "s/$var1/$var2/" file1 >file1.