sed command one liners

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Syntax for search and replace (s)

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/OPTIONS' FILE_NAME.txt

With no option specified for search and replace (s) will have first occurrence replaced

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) X^th occurrence a string

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/X' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) all occurrences a string

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/g' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) all occurrences a string and display only changed/altered lines

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/gp' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) all occurrences a string and display only changed/altered lines (to suppress display pattern buffer)

sed -n 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/gp' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) all occurrences a string, display only changed/altered lines and write them to separate file_name (to suppress display pattern buffer)

sed 's/SEARCH/REPLACE/gpw ALTERED.txt' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and delete (s) all occurrences a string

sed 's/SEARCH/ /g' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete last two characters of all lines (s)

sed 's/..$/ /g' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete first two characters of all lines (s)

sed 's/^../ /g' FILE_NAME.txt

To search and replace (s) all occurrences a string provided an additional string1 is also found on same line

sed '/ADDITIONAL/s/SEARCH/REPLACE/g' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete (d) all lines starting with hash # and display output

sed 's/^#.*//g; /^$/d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete X^th line and display output

sed 'X d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete last line and display output

sed '$ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete X^th line and alter file_name

sed -i 'X d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete all lines from 1^st to Y^th

sed '1,Y d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete all lines from X^th to Y^th

sed 'X,Y d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete all lines from X^th to last

sed 'X,$ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete every X^th line starting from Y^th line

sed 'X~Y d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete a line containing a pattern

sed '/SEARCH/ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete a line not containing a pattern

sed '/SEARCH/ !d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete X lines starting from the line containing a pattern (Next lines from pattern)

sed '/SEARCH/,X d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete lines till end of file_name starting from the line containing a pattern (Next lines from pattern)

sed '/SEARCH/,$ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete lines starting from X^th line till line containing a pattern

sed 'X,/SEARCH/ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete lines from starting of file_name till line containing a pattern

sed '1,/PATTERN/ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete all blank lines

sed '^$ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete set of lines within two pattern lines

sed '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To delete lines containing either of two patterns

sed '/PATTERN1\|PATTERN2/ d' FILE_NAME.txt

To append a line after X^th line

sed 'X a ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To append a line after last line

sed '$ a ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To append the line after the line where pattern match is found

sed '/SEARCH/ a ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To insert the line before X^th line.

sed 'N i ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To insert the line before last line.

sed '$ i ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To insert the line before every line where pattern match is found.

sed '/SEARCH/ i ADDITIONAL_LINE' FILE_NAME.txt

To print X^th line

sed -n 'Np' FILE_NAME.txt

To print last line

sed -n '$p' sedtest.txt

To print the block of lines starting at line number X and ending at line number Y.

sed -n 'X,Yp' FILE_NAME.txt

To print lines starting from X^th up to last line

sed -n 'X,$p' FILE_NAME.txt

To print X^th  line and every Y^th  line coming after that.

sed -n 'X~Yp' FILE_NAME.txt

To print the line that contains the pattern

sed -n '/SEARCH/p' FILE_NAME.txt

To print lines excluding a Pattern

sed -n '/SEARCH/!p' FILE_NAME.txt

To insert blank lines between all lines in a file_name

cat file_namename | sed G

To insert blank lines between all lines in a file_name which already has blank lines in it, but Output file_name should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text.

cat file_namename | sed '/^$/d;G'

To triple space a file_name

cat file_namename| sed 'G;G'

To undo double-spacing

cat file_namename | sed G | sed 'n;d'

To number each line of a file_name (simple left alignment for numbers).

sed = file_namename | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'

To number each line of a file_name (number on left, right-aligned)

sed = file_namename | sed 'N; s/^/     /; s/ *\(.\{6,\}\)\n/\1  /'

To number each line of file_name, but only print numbers if line is not blank

sed '/./=' file_namename | sed '/./N; s/\n/ /'

To count lines (emulates "wc -l")

sed -n '$='

To delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line aligns all text flush left

cat file_namename | sed 's/^[ \t]*//'                   

To delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line

cat file_namename | sed 's/[ \t]*$//'

To delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line

cat file_name_name | sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'

To insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)

cat file_name_name | sed 's/^/     /'

To align all text flush right on a 79-column width

sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,78\}$/ &/;ta'  # set at 78 plus 1 space

To substitute "XXX" with "YYY" ONLY for lines which contain "WWW"

cat file_namename | sed '/WWW/s/XXX/YYY/g'

To substitute "XXX" with "YYY" EXCEPT for lines which contain "WWW"

cat file_namename | sed '/WWW/!s/XXX/YYY/g'

To change "XXX" or "YYY" or "ZZZ" to "AAA"

cat file_namename | sed 's/XXX/AAA/g;s/YYY/AAA/g;s/ZZZ/AAA/g' 

cat file_namename | gsed 's/XXX\|YYY\|ZZZ/AAA/g'               

To reverse order of lines

cat file_namename | sed '1!G;h;$!d'              

cat file_namename | sed -n '1!G;h;$p'            

Note: causes blank lines to be deleted

To reverse each character on the line

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

To join two consecutive lines side-by-side by removing newline between them

cat file_namename | sed '$!N;s/\n/ /'

If a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line and replace the "=" with a single space

cat file_namename | sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n=/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'

To add commas to numeric strings, changing "1234567" to "1,234,567"

gsed ':a;s/\B[0-9]\{3\}\>/,&/;ta'                    

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

To 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

To print first 10 lines of file_name (similar to "head")

 sed 10q

To print first line of file_name (similar to “head -1")

 sed q

To print the last 10 lines of a file_name (similar to "tail")

 sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba'

To print the last 2 lines of a file_name (similar to "tail -2")

 sed '$!N;$!D'

To print the last line of a file_name (Similar to "tail -1")

 sed '$!d'                   

 sed -n '$p'                  

To print only lines which match regular expression (Similar to "grep")

 sed -n '/SEARCH/p'          

 sed '/SEARCH/!d'            

To print only lines which do NOT match pattern or regex (Similar to "grep -v")

 sed -n '/SEARCH/!p'         

 sed '/SEARCH/d'             

To print the line immediately before a pattern or regex, but not the line containing the pattern or regex

 sed -n '/SEARCH/{g;1!p;};h'

To print the line immediately after a pattern or regex, but not the line containing the pattern or regex

 sed -n '/SEARCH/{n;p;}'

To print 1 line of context before and after pattern or regex, with line number indicating where the pattern or regex occurred (similar to "grep -A1 -B1")

 sed -n -e '/SEARCH/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}' -e h

To grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)

 sed '/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d'

To grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)

 sed '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d'

To grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates "egrep")

 sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d   

 gsed '/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/!d'                       

To print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs)

sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;'

To 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'

To 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'        

To print only lines of X number of characters or longer

 sed -n '/^.\{X\}/p'

To print only lines of less than Y number of characters

 sed -n '/^.\{Y\}/!p'        , corresponds to above

 sed '/^.\{Y\}/d'            , simpler syntax

To print all of file_name EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions

 sed '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/d'

To delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file_name (emulates "uniq"). i.e. First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted.

 sed '$!N; /^\(.*\)\n\1$/!P; D'

To delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file_name. 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'

To delete ALL blank lines from a file_name (Similar to "grep '.' ")

 sed '/./!d'                           

References :

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

http://www.yourownlinux.com/search/label/sed

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