using sed replace the new line with character

Question

I am using sed to remove the new line and replace with   but I am not able to get the desired output.

I wrote:

find . -name $1 -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i '' -e 's|\n|ABC|g'

...but this doesn't work.

possible duplicate of Find and replace text within a file using commands — Pandya, Sep 26 '14 at 16:01
You can invoke programs on find results a bit more elegantly with the -exec action: find . -name $1 -exec sed -i '' -e 's|\n|ABC|g' \{\} + — David Foerster, Sep 26 '14 at 16:12
@Pandya I don't believe this is a duplicate, the OP is already using what that question would suggest, he just needs help getting the exact command for his specific environment correct, which that question won't provide. — Seth, Sep 26 '14 at 16:19

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:57

Your sed expression is treating each line separately - so it doesn't actually read the newline character into the pattern buffer and hence can't replace it. If you just want to add   while retaining the actual newline as well, you can just use the end-of-line marker $ and do

sed -i'' 's|$|<br>|' file

Note that the empty backup file name - if you use it - must directly follow the -i like -i''; also the -e is not necessary when using a single expression.

OTOH if you really want to replace actual newline characters, you need to jump through some extra hoops, for example

sed -i'' -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n/<br>/;ta' -e 'P;D' file

or, more compactly

sed -i'' ':a; $!N; s|\n|<br>|; ta; P;D' file

which read successive pairs of lines into the pattern buffer and then replace the intervening newline - see Famous Sed One-Liners Explained.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:42

0

If you want to replace the new line and with  , you can use

 find . -name $1 -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/.*$/&<br\>/'

answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:42

g_p

18,504

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:44

0

Why not just

find . -name $1 | xargs sed -ri "s/$/ /"

?

(Try without the i, first ;-) )

answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:44

laruiss

111
2

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:53

0

To replace inline \n with  , just use perl (or sed), needless to call find for that task:

perl -pi -e "s/$/<br>/" myfile

Or for an alias:

alias brtag='perl -pi -e "s/$/<br>/" $1'

answered Sep 26 '14 at 14:53

Sylvain Pineau

62,169

using sed replace the new line with character

4 Answers4