Examples
Date Converting
sed -e 's#Jan#01#' -e 's#Feb#02#' -e 's#Mar#03#' -e 's#Apr#04#' -e 's#May#05#' -e 's#Jun#06#' -e 's#Jul#07#' -e 's#Aug#08#' -e 's#Sep#09#' -e 's#Oct#10#' -e 's#Nov#11#' -e 's#Dec#12#'
Suchen bis zum nächste $AUSDRUCK multiline
sed -ne '/^<gpx/,/">/p' 2012-10-10-1328.gpx
^<gpx - Suche anfang
, - iwas statisches
"> - Suche ende
p oder d für löschen
Tutorial
FILE SPACING
double space a file
sed G
double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text.
sed '/^$/d;G'
triple space a file
sed 'G;G'
undo double-spacing (assumes even-numbered lines are always blank)
sed 'n;d'
insert a blank line above every line which matches “regex”
sed '/regex/{x;p;x;}'
insert a blank line below every line which matches “regex”
sed '/regex/G'
insert a blank line above and below every line which matches “regex”
sed '/regex/{x;p;x;G;}'
NUMBERING
number each line of a file (simple left alignment). Using a tab (see note on ‘\t’ at end of file) instead of space will preserve margins.
sed = filename | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'
number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned)
sed = filename | sed 'N; s/^/ /; s/ *\(.\{6,\}\)\n/\1 /'
number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank
sed '/./=' filename | sed '/./N; s/\n/ /'
count lines (emulates “wc -l”)
sed -n '$='
TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION:
IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
sed 's/.$//' ## assumes that all lines end with CR/LF
sed 's/^M$//' ## in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M
sed 's/\x0D$//' ## works on ssed, gsed 3.02.80 or higher
IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
sed "s/$/`echo -e \\\r`/" ## command line under ksh
sed 's/$'"/`echo \\\r`/" ## command line under bash
sed "s/$/`echo \\\r`/" ## command line under zsh
sed 's/$/\r/' ## gsed 3.02.80 or higher
IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
sed "s/$//" ## method 1
sed -n p ## method 2
delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line aligns all text flush left
sed 's/^[ \t]*//' ## see note on '\t' at end of file
delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line
sed 's/[ \t]*$//' ## see note on '\t' at end of file
delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line
sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'
insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)
sed 's/^/ /'
align all text flush right on a 79-column width
sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,78\}$/ &/;ta' ## set at 78 plus 1 space
substitute (find and replace) “foo” with “bar” on each line
sed 's/foo/bar/' ## replaces only 1st instance in a line
sed 's/foo/bar/4' ## replaces only 4th instance in a line
sed 's/foo/bar/g' ## replaces ALL instances in a line
sed 's/\(.*\)foo\(.*foo\)/\1bar\2/' ## replace the next-to-last case
sed 's/\(.*\)foo/\1bar/' ## replace only the last case
substitute “foo” with “bar” ONLY for lines which contain “baz”
sed '/baz/s/foo/bar/g'
substitute “foo” with “bar” EXCEPT for lines which contain “baz”
sed '/baz/!s/foo/bar/g'
change “scarlet” or “ruby” or “puce” to “red”
sed 's/scarlet/red/g;s/ruby/red/g;s/puce/red/g' ## most seds
gsed 's/scarlet\|ruby\|puce/red/g' ## GNU sed only
reverse order of lines (emulates “tac”) bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted
sed '1!G;h;$!d' ## method 1
sed -n '1!G;h;$p' ## method 2
reverse each character on the line (emulates “rev”)
sed '/\n/!G;s/\(.\)\(.*\n\)/&\2\1/;//D;s/.//'
join pairs of lines side-by-side (like “paste”) sed ‘$!N;s/\n/ /’
if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it
sed -e :a -e '/\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta'
if a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line and replace the “=” with a single space
sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n=/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'
add commas to numeric strings, changing “1234567” to “1,234,567”
gsed ':a;s/\B[0-9]\{3\}\>/,&/;ta' ## GNU sed
sed -e :a -e 's/\(.*[0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/;ta' ## other seds
add commas to numbers with decimal points and minus signs (GNU sed)
gsed -r ':a;s/(^|[^0-9.])([0-9]+)([0-9]{3})/\1\2,\3/g;ta'
add a blank line every 5 lines (after lines 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)
gsed '0~5G' ## GNU sed only
sed 'n;n;n;n;G;' ## other seds
SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES:
print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of “head”)
sed 10q
print first line of file (emulates “head -1”)
sed q
print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates “tail”)
sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba'
print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates “tail -2”)
sed '$!N;$!D'
print the last line of a file (emulates “tail -1”)
sed '$!d' ## method 1
sed -n '$p' ## method 2
print the next-to-the-last line of a file
sed -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x ## for 1-line files, print blank line
sed -e '1{$q;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x ## for 1-line files, print the line
sed -e '1{$d;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x ## for 1-line files, print nothing
print only lines which match regular expression (emulates “grep”)
sed -n '/regexp/p' ## method 1
sed '/regexp/!d' ## method 2
print only lines which do NOT match regexp (emulates “grep -v”)
sed -n '/regexp/!p' ## method 1, corresponds to above
sed '/regexp/d' ## method 2, simpler syntax
print the line immediately before a regexp, but not the line containing the regexp
sed -n '/regexp/{g;1!p;};h'
print the line immediately after a regexp, but not the line containing the regexp
sed -n '/regexp/{n;p;}'
print 1 line of context before and after regexp, with line number indicating where the regexp occurred (similar to “grep -A1 -B1”)
sed -n -e '/regexp/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}' -e h
grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
sed '/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d'
grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)
sed '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d'
grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates “egrep”)
sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d ## most seds
gsed '/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/!d' ## GNU sed only
print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs) HHsed v1.5 must insert a ‘G;’ after ‘x;’ in the next 3 scripts below
sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;'
print paragraph if it contains AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;/BBB/!d;/CCC/!d'
print paragraph if it contains AAA or BBB or CCC
sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d
gsed '/./{H;$!d;};x;/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/b;d' ## GNU sed only
print only lines of 65 characters or longer
sed -n '/^.\{65\}/p'
print only lines of less than 65 characters
sed -n '/^.\{65\}/!p' ## method 1, corresponds to above
sed '/^.\{65\}/d' ## method 2, simpler syntax
print section of file from regular expression to end of file
sed -n '/regexp/,$p'
print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive)
sed -n '8,12p' ## method 1
sed '8,12!d' ## method 2
print line number 52
sed -n '52p' ## method 1
sed '52!d' ## method 2
sed '52q;d' ## method 3, efficient on large files
beginning at line 3, print every 7th line
gsed -n '3~7p' ## GNU sed only
sed -n '3,${p;n;n;n;n;n;n;}' ## other seds
print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive)
sed -n '/Iowa/,/Montana/p' ## case sensitive
SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES
print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions
sed '/Iowa/,/Montana/d'
delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file (emulates “uniq”). First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted.
sed '$!N; /^\(.*\)\n\1$/!P; D'
delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file. Beware not to overflow the buffer size of the hold space, or else use GNU sed.
sed -n 'G; s/\n/&&/; /^\([ -~]*\n\).*\n\1/d; s/\n//; h; P'
delete all lines except duplicate lines (emulates “uniq -d”).
sed '$!N; s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/; t; D'
delete the first 10 lines of a file
sed '1,10d'
delete the last line of a file
sed '$d'
delete the last 2 lines of a file
sed 'N;$!P;$!D;$d'
delete the last 10 lines of a file
sed -e :a -e '$d;N;2,10ba' -e 'P;D' ## method 1
sed -n -e :a -e '1,10!{P;N;D;};N;ba' ## method 2
delete every 8th line
gsed '0~8d' ## GNU sed only
sed 'n;n;n;n;n;n;n;d;' ## other seds
delete lines matching pattern
sed '/pattern/d'
delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as “grep ‘.’ “)
sed '/^$/d' ## method 1
sed '/./!d' ## method 2
delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first; also deletes all blank lines from top and end of file (emulates “cat -s”)
sed '/./,/^$/!d' ## method 1, allows 0 blanks at top, 1 at EOF
sed '/^$/N;/\n$/D' ## method 2, allows 1 blank at top, 0 at EOF
delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first 2:
sed '/^$/N;/\n$/N;//D'
delete all leading blank lines at top of file
sed '/./,$!d'
delete all trailing blank lines at end of file
sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}' ## works on all seds
sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/N;/\n$/ba' ## ditto, except for gsed 3.02.*
delete the last line of each paragraph
sed -n '/^$/{p;h;};/./{x;/./p;}'
SPECIAL APPLICATIONS
remove nroff overstrikes (char, backspace) from man pages. The ’echo’ command may need an -e switch if you use Unix System V or bash shell.
sed "s/.`echo \\\b`//g" ## double quotes required for Unix environment
sed 's/.^H//g' ## in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V and then Ctrl-H
sed 's/.\x08//g' ## hex expression for sed 1.5, GNU sed, ssed
get Usenet/e-mail message header
sed '/^$/q' ## deletes everything after first blank line
get Usenet/e-mail message body
sed '1,/^$/d' ## deletes everything up to first blank line
get Subject header, but remove initial “Subject: " portion
sed '/^Subject: */!d; s///;q'
get return address header
sed '/^Reply-To:/q; /^From:/h; /./d;g;q'
parse out the address proper. Pulls out the e-mail address by itself from the 1-line return address header (see preceding script)
sed 's/ *(.*)//; s/>.*//; s/.*[:<] *//'
add a leading angle bracket and space to each line (quote a message)
sed 's/^/> /'
delete leading angle bracket & space from each line (unquote a message)
sed 's/^> //'
remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags)
sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba'
extract multi-part uuencoded binaries, removing extraneous header info, so that only the uuencoded portion remains. Files passed to sed must be passed in the proper order. Version 1 can be entered from the command line; version 2 can be made into an executable Unix shell script. (Modified from a script by Rahul Dhesi.)
sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' file1 file2 ... fileX | uudecode ## vers. 1
sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' "$@" | uudecode ## vers. 2
sort paragraphs of file alphabetically. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. GNU sed uses \v for vertical tab, or any unique char will do.
sed '/./{H;d;};x;s/\n/={NL}=/g' file | sort | sed '1s/={NL}=//;s/={NL}=/\n/g'
gsed '/./{H;d};x;y/\n/\v/' file | sort | sed '1s/\v//;y/\v/\n/'
sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d
sed '/AAA/b;/BBB/b;/CCC/b;d' ## or even
sed '/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/b;d'
sed 's/foo/bar/g' filename ## standard replace command
sed '/foo/ s/foo/bar/g' filename ## executes more quickly
sed '/foo/ s//bar/g' filename ## shorthand sed syntax
sed -n '45,50p' filename ## print line nos. 45-50 of a file
sed -n '51q;45,50p' filename ## same, but executes much faster