- : :label
- Label a line in the script for the transfer of control by
b or t.
label may contain up to seven characters.
(The POSIX standard says that an implementation can allow longer
labels if it wishes to. GNU sed allows labels to be of any length.)
- = [address]=
- Write to standard output the line number of addressed line.
- a [address]a\
- text
Append text
following each line matched by address. If
text goes over more than one line, newlines
must be "hidden" by preceding them with a backslash. The
text will be terminated by the first
newline that is not hidden in this way. The
text is not available in the pattern space
and subsequent commands cannot be applied to it. The results of this
command are sent to standard output when the list of editing commands
is finished, regardless of what happens to the current line in the
pattern space.
- b [address1[,address2]]b[label]
- Transfer control unconditionally (branch) to
:label elsewhere in
script. That is, the command following the
label is the next command applied to the
current line. If no label is specified,
control falls through to the end of the script, so no more commands
are applied to the current line.
- c [address1[,address2]]c\
- text
Replace (change) the lines selected by the address with
text. When a range of lines is specified,
all lines as a group are replaced by a single copy of
text. The newline following each line of
text must be escaped by a backslash, except
the last line. The contents of the pattern space are, in effect,
deleted and no subsequent editing commands can be applied to it (or to
text).
- d [address1[,address2]]d
- Delete line(s) from pattern space. Thus, the line is not passed to standard
output. A new line of input is read and editing resumes with first
command in script.
- D [address1[,address2]]D
- Delete first part (up to embedded newline) of multiline pattern space created
by N command and resume editing with first command in
script. If this command empties the pattern space, then a new line
of input is read, as if the d command had been executed.
- g [address1[,address2]]g
- Copy (get) contents of hold space (see h or
H command) into the pattern space, wiping out
previous contents.
- G [address1[,address2]]G
- Append newline followed by contents of hold space (see
h or H command) to contents of
the pattern space. If hold space is empty, a newline is still
appended to the pattern space.
- h [address1[,address2]]h
- Copy pattern space into hold space, a special temporary buffer.
Previous contents of hold space are wiped out.
- H [address1[,address2]]H
- Append newline and contents of pattern space to contents of the hold
space. Even if hold space is empty, this command still appends the
newline first.
- i [address1]i\
- text
Insert text before each line matched by
address. (See a for
details on text.)
- l [address1[,address2]]l
- List the contents of the pattern space, showing nonprinting characters
as ASCII codes. Long lines are wrapped.
- n [address1[,address2]]n
- Read next line of input into pattern space. Current line is sent to
standard output. New line becomes current line and increments line
counter. Control passes to command following n
instead of resuming at the top of the script.
- N [address1[,address2]]N
- Append next input line to contents of pattern space; the new line is
separated from the previous contents of the pattern space by a newline.
(This command is designed to allow pattern matches across two
lines. Using \n to match the embedded newline, you can match
patterns across multiple lines.)
- p [address1[,address2]]p
- Print the addressed line(s). Note that this can result in duplicate
output unless default output is suppressed by using "#n" or
the -n
command-line option. Typically used before commands that change flow
control (d, n,
b) and might prevent the current line from being
output.
- P [address1[,address2]]P
- Print first part (up to embedded newline) of multiline pattern space
created by N command. Same as p
if N has not been applied to a line.
- q [address]q
- Quit when address is encountered. The
addressed line is first written to output (if default output is not
suppressed), along with any text appended to it by previous
a or r commands.
- r [address]r file
- Read contents of file and append after the
contents of the pattern space. Exactly one space must be put between
r and the filename.
- s [address1[,address2]]s/pattern/replacement/[flags]
- Substitute replacement for
pattern on each addressed line. If pattern
addresses are used, the pattern // represents the
last pattern address specified. The following flags can be specified:
- n
- Replace nth instance of
/pattern/ on each addressed line.
n is any number in the range 1 to 512, and
the default is 1.
- g
- Replace all instances of /pattern/ on each
addressed line, not just the first instance.
- I
- Matching is case-insensitive.
- p
- Print the line if a successful substitution is done. If several
successful substitutions are done, multiple copies of the line will be
printed.
- w file
- Write the line to file if a replacement
was done. A maximum of 10 different files can be opened.
- t [address1[,address2]]t [label]
- Test if successful substitutions have been made on addressed lines,
and if so, branch to line marked by :label.
(See b and :.) If label is not
specified, control falls through to bottom of script.
- w [address1[,address2]]w file
- Append contents of pattern space to file.
This action occurs when the command is encountered rather than when
the pattern space is output. Exactly one space must separate the
w and the filename. A maximum of 10 different
files can be opened in a script. This command will create the file if
it does not exist; if the file exists, its contents will be
overwritten each time the script is executed. Multiple write commands
that direct output to the same file append to the end of the file.
- x [address1[,address2]]x
- Exchange contents of the pattern space with the contents of the hold
space.
- y [address1[,address2]]y/abc/xyz/
- Transform each character by position in string
abc to its equivalent in string
xyz.