SED command utilities

Table of Contents
Purpose..................................................................................................................3
Sed Command Introduction....................................................................................3
Regular expression................................................................................................3
sed options.............................................................................................................4
1. To print the file (emulates “cat”)....................................................................5
2. To print first 10 lines of a file (emulates “head”)............................................5
3. To print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates "tail")..........................................5
4. To print the set of lines...................................................................................5
5. To print only lines matches the regular expression (emulates "grep")............5
6. To print only lines starts with given “regular expression”...............................5
7. To print only lines ends with given “regular expression”................................5
8. To print only lines which contains exact “regular expression”........................6
9. To print only lines which do not matches the regular expression....................6
10. To print the line immediately after a regular expression...............................6
11. To print the section of lines between two given strings................................6
12. To print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions................6
13. To print all only the line number of the regular expression...........................6
14. Beginning 2nd line, print every 3rd line........................................................6
15. Delete the first line and print the same in screen.........................................6
16. Delete the last line and print the same in the screen....................................7
17. Delete the set of lines from a file and print the same in screen....................7
18. Delete leading white space (spaces, tab) .....................................................7
19. Delete trailing white space (spaces, tab) .....................................................7
20. Delete both leading and trailing white spaces..............................................7
21. Delete the comments from a file (#) and print the same in screen..............7
22. Delete the blank lines...................................................................................7
23. Create a new file removing the blank lines...................................................7
24. Delete the lines which contain particular string............................................8
25. Delete the particular string in a line and print the rest.................................8
26. Delete all leading blank lines at the beginning of the file..............................8
27. Delete all the trailing blank lines at the end of the file..................................8
28. Delete every 3rd line in a given file.............................................................8
29. Delete consecutive duplicate lines in a file...................................................8
30. Insert 2 blank spaces at the beginning of each line......................................8
31. Insert 2 blank spaces at the end of each line................................................8
32. Replace the first instance of string ...............................................................8
33. Replace the last instance of a string.............................................................9
34. Replace the string from particular block.......................................................9
35. Replace all the instance of string .................................................................9
36. Replace all the instance of string when certain string occurs........................9
37. Replace all the instance of string when certain string not occurs.................9
38. Replace the set of patterns to single string...................................................9
39. Reverse the order of lines in a given file.......................................................9
40. Reverse each character on the line...............................................................9
41. Reverse the file ............................................................................................9
42. Add commas to numeric strings..................................................................10
43. Joint two lines, previous line ending with “/”...............................................10
44. Upper to Lower............................................................................................10
45. Lower to Upper............................................................................................10
46. Word Count ................................................................................................10
SED command utilities

47. File Copy.....................................................................................................10

48. Merge two files............................................................................................10
49. Double space a file......................................................................................10
50. Displaying File with Line Number................................................................11
SED command utilities

Purpose

This document contains some useful features of “sed” command. These commands are
not very common otherwise but are very helpful in case of the need, dealing with
different situations.

This document will definitely be helpful for those who work on UNIX Platform. This
document can be a part of HELP document while training on UNIX for ALL specially
for the new joinees in an organization.

Sed Command Introduction

“sed” is a powerful UNIX command. One can modify text across multiple files and
make changes to files without opening them in an interactive editor.

sed is not suitable as a general purpose editor, and is best used to apply a set of
modifications to text, particularly if you're managing more than one file. If you want to
run a series of once-only edits, you are better off directly editing a file using vi or
Emacs, as using sed will take much longer. But if you need to make systematic
changes across multiple files, then sed is your best bet.

The sed utility is a stream editor that reads one or more text files, makes editing
changes according to a script of editing commands, and writes the results to standard
output. The script is obtained from either the script operand string or a combination of
the option-arguments from the -e script and -f script_file options.

The sed utility is a stream editor that reads one or more text files, makes editing
changes according to a script of editing commands, and writes the results to standard
output. The script is obtained from either the script operand string or a combination of
the option-arguments from the -e script and -f script_file options.

Sed is extremely powerful, and you can do things in sed that you can't do in any
standard word processor. And because sed is external to the word processor and comes
with every Unix system in the world, once you learn sed you'll have a very handy tool
in your toolkit, even if you rarely use Unix.

Regular expression

We can use regular expressions to express patterns that we may find in the text. If
you've ever used the '*' character on the shell command line, you've used something
that's similar, but not identical to, regular expressions. Here are the special characters
that you can use in regular expressions:

Character Description
SED command utilities

^ Matches the beginning of the line

$ Matches the end of the line
. Matches any single character
* Will match zero or more occurrences of the previous character
[] Matches all the characters inside the [ ]

Few examples

Regular
expression Description
/./ Will match any line that contains at least one character
/../ Will match any line that contains at least two characters
/^#/ Will match any line that begins with a '#'
/^$/ Will match all blank lines
/}^/ Will match any lines that ends with '}' (no spaces)
/} *^/ Will match any line ending with '}' followed by zero or more spaces
/[abc]/ Will match any line that contains a lowercase 'a', 'b', or 'c'
/^[abc]/ Will match any line that begins with an 'a', 'b', or 'c'

sed options

The default behavior of sed outputs all lines, even if no changes are made. The -n
option will skip lines that aren't modified.
SED command utilities

1. To print the file (emulates “cat”)

This command can be used to print the first 10 lines of given file

sed ':' FILENAME

(or) sed -n 'p' FILENAME

2. To print first 10 lines of a file (emulates “head”)

This command can be used to print the first 10 lines of given file

sed 10q FILENAME | more

3. To print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates "tail")

This command can be used to print the last10 lines of given file

sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba' FILENAME | more

4. To print the set of lines

This command can be used to print 5 lines starting line number 45 to line number
50.

sed ‘45,50p’ FILENAME | more

5. To print only lines matches the regular expression (emulates "grep")

This command can be used to print the lines which contain the given regular
expression.

sed -n '/regexp/p' FILENAME

6. To print only lines starts with given “regular expression”

This command can be used to print the lines which contain the given regular
expression at the beginning of a line.

sed -n '/^regexp/p' FILENAME

7. To print only lines ends with given “regular expression”

This command can be used to print the lines which contain the given regular
expression at the end of a line

sed -n '/regexp$/p' FILENAME

SED command utilities

8. To print only lines which contains exact “regular expression”

This command can be used to print the lines which contain only the given regular
expression.

sed -n '/^regexp$/p' FILENAME

9. To print only lines which do not matches the regular expression

This command can be used to print the lines which contain the given regular
expression.

sed -n '/regexp/!p' FILENAME

10. To print the line immediately after a regular expression

This command can be used to print the line immediate after which contain the given
regular expression.

sed -n '/regexp/{n;p;}' FILENAME

11. To print the section of lines between two given strings

This command can be used to print the lines between two given strings.

sed '/STRING1/,/STRING2/p' FILENAME

12. To print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions

This command can be used to print all of file except section between 2 strings.

sed ‘/STRING1/,/STRING2/d' FILENAME

13. To print all only the line number of the regular expression
This command can be used to print the line number of the given regular expression

sed -n '/regexp/=' FILENAME

14. Beginning 2nd line, print every 3rd line

This command can be used to print every 3rd line starting from 2nd line

sed -n '2,${p;n;n;}' FILENAME

15. Delete the first line and print the same in screen
This command can be used to delete the first line from the file and print the same in
the screen

sed -e '1d' FILENAME |more

SED command utilities

16. Delete the last line and print the same in the screen.
This command can be used to delete the last line from the file and print the same in
the screen

sed '$d' FILENAME |more

17. Delete the set of lines from a file and print the same in screen
This command can be used to delete the set of given range from the file and print
the same in the screen

sed -e '2,10d' FILENAME |more

18. Delete leading white space (spaces, tab)

This command can be used to delete the leading blank spaces for all the lines.

sed 's/^[ \t]*//' FILENAME |more

19. Delete trailing white space (spaces, tab)

This command can be used to delete the trailing blank spaces for all the lines.

sed 's/[ \t]*$//' FILENAME|more

20. Delete both leading and trailing white spaces

This command can be used to delete the trailing and leading blank spaces for all
the lines.
sed 's/[ \t]*$//' FILENAME|m

21. Delete the comments from a file (#) and print the same in screen
This command can be used to delete the UNIX comments in a given file and print
the same in the screen.

sed -e '/^#/d' FILENAME |more

22. Delete the blank lines

This command can be used to delete the blank lines in a given file

sed '/^$/d' FILENAME |more

(or) sed -n '/./p' FILENAME | more

23. Create a new file removing the blank lines

This command can be used to delete the blank lines in a given file

sed -ne '/^$/d; w NEW-FILE' OLD-FILE

SED command utilities

24. Delete the lines which contain particular string

This command can be used to delete the lines which contain a particular string.

sed -e '/STRING/d' FILENAME |more

25. Delete the particular string in a line and print the rest
This command can be used to delete the particular string in a given file.

sed -e 's/STRING//' FILENAME |more

26. Delete all leading blank lines at the beginning of the file
This command can be used to delete all the leading blank lines at the beginning of
the file.

sed '/./,$!d' FILENAME

27. Delete all the trailing blank lines at the end of the file
This command can be used to delete all the trailing blank lines at the end of the file.

sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}' FILENAME

28. Delete every 3rd line in a given file

This command can be used to delete every third line in a given file.

sed 'n;n;d' FILENAME

29. Delete consecutive duplicate lines in a file.

This command can be used to delete the consecutive duplicate line and keeps the
first one.

sed '$!N; /^\(.*\)\n\1$/!P; D' FILENAME

30. Insert 2 blank spaces at the beginning of each line

This command can be used to insert 2 blank spaces at the beginning of each line.

sed ‘s/^/ /’ FILENAME

31. Insert 2 blank spaces at the end of each line

This command can be used to insert 2 blank spaces at the end of each line.

sed ‘s/$/ /’ FILENAME

32. Replace the first instance of string

This command can be used to replace the first occurrence of given string/
SED command utilities

sed ‘s/STRING1/STRING2/’ FILENAME

33. Replace the last instance of a string

This command can be used to replace the last occurrence of a given string

sed 's/\(.*\)STRING1/\STRING2/' FILENAME

34. Replace the string from particular block

This command can be used to replace the string in a given block.

sed ‘2,4 s /STRING1/STRING2/' FILENAME

35. Replace all the instance of string

This command can be used to replace the first occurrence of given string

sed ‘s/STRING1/STRING2/g’ FILENAME

36. Replace all the instance of string when certain string occurs
This command can be used to replace the first occurrence of given string/

sed ‘/SEARCH_STRING/s/STRING1/STRING2/g’ FILENAME

37. Replace all the instance of string when certain string not occurs
This command can be used to replace the first occurrence of given string

sed ‘/SEARCH_STRING/!s/STRING1/STRING2/g’ FILENAME

38. Replace the set of patterns to single string

This command can be used to replace the first occurrence of given string

sed ‘s/STRING1\|STRING2\|STRING3/STRING/g’ FILENAME

39. Reverse the order of lines in a given file

This command can be used to reverse the order of lines in a given file.

sed '1!G;h;$!d' FILENAME

(or) sed -nf '1!G;h;$p' FILENAME

40. Reverse each character on the line

This command can be used to reverse each character on the line.

sed '/\n/!G;s/\(.\)\(.*\n\)/&\2\1/;//D;s/.//' FILENAME

41. Reverse the file

This command can be used to reverse the contents of the file
SED command utilities

sed '1!G;h;$!d' FILENAME | sed '/\n/!G;s/\(.\)\(.*\n\)/&\2\1/;//D;s/.//'

42. Add commas to numeric strings

This command can be used to add commas to numeric string, changing "1234567"
to "1,234,567"

sed -e :a -e 's/\(.*[0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/;ta' FILENAME

43. Joint two lines, previous line ending with “/”

This command can be used to joint two lines, where previous line ending with “\”

sed -e :a -e '/\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta' FILENAME

44. Upper to Lower

This command can be used to convert a file from UPPER case to lower case

sed 'y/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/'
FILENAME

45. Lower to Upper

This command can be used to convert a file from lower case to upper case

sed 'y/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ/'
FILENAME

46. Word Count

This command can be used to count the lines in a file

sed -n '$=' FILENAME

47. File Copy

This command can be used to copy the file.

sed -n 'w NEW-FILE' OLD-FILE

48. Merge two files

This command can be used to merge the contents of two files

sed 'r FILE1' FILE2 | sed -n 'w NEW-FILE'

49. Double space a file

This command can be used to double space the given file
SED command utilities

sed 'G; w NEW-FILE' OLD-FILE

50. Displaying File with Line Number

This command can be used to print the file with line number.

sed = filename | sed 'N;s/\n/ : /'