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FILE SPACING:
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# double space a file
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sed G
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# double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file
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# should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text.
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sed ‘/^$/d;G’
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# triple space a file
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sed ‘G;G’
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# undo double-spacing (assumes even-numbered lines are always blank)
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sed ‘n;d’
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# insert a blank line above every line which matches “regex”
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sed ‘/regex/{x;p;x;}’
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# insert a blank line below every line which matches “regex”
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sed ‘/regex/G’
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# insert a blank line above and below every line which matches “regex”
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sed ‘/regex/{x;p;x;G;}’
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NUMBERING:
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# number each line of a file (simple left alignment). Using a tab (see
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# note on ‘t’ at end of file) instead of space will preserve margins.
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sed = filename | sed ‘N;s/n/t/’
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# number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned)
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sed = filename | sed ‘N; s/^/ /; s/ *(.{6,})n/1 /’
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# number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank
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sed ‘/./=’ filename | sed ‘/./N; s/n/ /’
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# count lines (emulates “wc -l”)
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sed -n ‘$=’
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TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION:
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# IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
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sed ‘s/.$//’ # assumes that all lines end with CR/LF
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sed ‘s/^M$//’ # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M
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sed ‘s/x0D$//’ # works on ssed, gsed 3.02.80 or higher
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# IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
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sed “s/$/`echo -e r`/” # command line under ksh
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sed ‘s/$’“/`echo r`/” # command line under bash
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sed “s/$/`echo r`/” # command line under zsh
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sed ‘s/$/r/’ # gsed 3.02.80 or higher
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# IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
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sed “s/$//” # method 1
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sed -n p # method 2
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# IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
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# Can only be done with UnxUtils sed, version 4.0.7 or higher. The
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# UnxUtils version can be identified by the custom “–text” switch
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# which appears when you use the “–help” switch. Otherwise, changing
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# DOS newlines to Unix newlines cannot be done with sed in a DOS
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# environment. Use “tr” instead.
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sed “s/r//” infile >outfile # UnxUtils sed v4.0.7 or higher
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tr -d r <infile >outfile # GNU tr version 1.22 or higher
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# delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line
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# aligns all text flush left
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sed ‘s/^[ t]*//’ # see note on ‘t’ at end of file
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# delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line
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sed ‘s/[ t]*$//’ # see note on ‘t’ at end of file
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# delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line
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sed ‘s/^[ t]*//;s/[ t]*$//’
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# insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)
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sed ‘s/^/ /’
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# align all text flush right on a 79-column width
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sed -e :a -e ‘s/^.{1,78}$/ &/;ta’ # set at 78 plus 1 space
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# center all text in the middle of 79-column width. In method 1,
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# spaces at the beginning of the line are significant, and trailing
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# spaces are appended at the end of the line. In method 2, spaces at
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# the beginning of the line are discarded in centering the line, and
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# no trailing spaces appear at the end of lines.
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sed -e :a -e ‘s/^.{1,77}$/ & /;ta’ # method 1
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sed -e :a -e ‘s/^.{1,77}$/ &/;ta’ -e ‘s/( *)1/1/’ # method 2
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# substitute (find and replace) “foo” with “bar” on each line
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sed ‘s/foo/bar/’ # replaces only 1st instance in a line
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sed ‘s/foo/bar/4’ # replaces only 4th instance in a line
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sed ‘s/foo/bar/g’ # replaces ALL instances in a line
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sed ‘s/(.*)foo(.*foo)/1bar2/’ # replace the next-to-last case
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sed ‘s/(.*)foo/1bar/’ # replace only the last case
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# substitute “foo” with “bar” ONLY for lines which contain “baz”
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sed ‘/baz/s/foo/bar/g’
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# substitute “foo” with “bar” EXCEPT for lines which contain “baz”
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sed ‘/baz/!s/foo/bar/g’
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# change “scarlet” or “ruby” or “puce” to “red”
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sed ‘s/scarlet/red/g;s/ruby/red/g;s/puce/red/g’ # most seds
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gsed ‘s/scarlet|ruby|puce/red/g’ # GNU sed only
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# reverse order of lines (emulates “tac”)
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# bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted
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sed ‘1!G;h;$!d’ # method 1
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sed -n ‘1!G;h;$p’ # method 2
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# reverse each character on the line (emulates “rev”)
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sed ‘/n/!G;s/(.)(.*n)/&21/;//D;s/.//’
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# join pairs of lines side-by-side (like “paste”)
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sed ‘$!N;s/n/ /’
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# if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it
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sed -e :a -e ‘/$/N; s/n//; ta’
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# if a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line
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# and replace the “=” with a single space
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sed -e :a -e ‘$!N;s/n=/ /;ta’ -e ‘P;D’
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# add commas to numeric strings, changing “1234567” to “1,234,567”
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gsed ‘:a;s/B[0-9]{3}>/,&/;ta’ # GNU sed
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sed -e :a -e ‘s/(.*[0-9])([0-9]{3})/1,2/;ta’ # other seds
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# add commas to numbers with decimal points and minus signs (GNU sed)
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gsed -r ‘:a;s/(^|[^0-9.])([0-9]+)([0-9]{3})/12,3/g;ta’
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# add a blank line every 5 lines (after lines 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)
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gsed ‘0~5G’ # GNU sed only
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sed ‘n;n;n;n;G;’ # other seds
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SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES:
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# print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of “head”)
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sed 10q
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# print first line of file (emulates “head -1”)
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sed q
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# print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates “tail”)
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sed -e :a -e ‘$q;N;11,$D;ba’
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# print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates “tail -2”)
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sed ‘$!N;$!D’
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# print the last line of a file (emulates “tail -1”)
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sed ‘$!d’ # method 1
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sed -n ‘$p’ # method 2
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# print the next-to-the-last line of a file
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sed -e ‘$!{h;d;}’ -e x # for 1-line files, print blank line
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sed -e ‘1{$q;}’ -e ‘$!{h;d;}’ -e x # for 1-line files, print the line
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sed -e ‘1{$d;}’ -e ‘$!{h;d;}’ -e x # for 1-line files, print nothing
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# print only lines which match regular expression (emulates “grep”)
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sed -n ‘/regexp/p’ # method 1
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sed ‘/regexp/!d’ # method 2
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# print only lines which do NOT match regexp (emulates “grep -v”)
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sed -n ‘/regexp/!p’ # method 1, corresponds to above
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sed ‘/regexp/d’ # method 2, simpler syntax
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# print the line immediately before a regexp, but not the line
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# containing the regexp
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sed -n ‘/regexp/{g;1!p;};h’
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# print the line immediately after a regexp, but not the line
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# containing the regexp
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sed -n ‘/regexp/{n;p;}’
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# print 1 line of context before and after regexp, with line number
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# indicating where the regexp occurred (similar to “grep -A1 -B1”)
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sed -n -e ‘/regexp/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}’ -e h
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# grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
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sed ‘/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d’
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# grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)
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sed ‘/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d’
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# grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates “egrep”)
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sed -e ‘/AAA/b’ -e ‘/BBB/b’ -e ‘/CCC/b’ -e d # most seds
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gsed ‘/AAA|BBB|CCC/!d’ # GNU sed only
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# print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs)
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# HHsed v1.5 must insert a ‘G;’ after ‘x;’ in the next 3 scripts below
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sed -e ‘/./{H;$!d;}’ -e ‘x;/AAA/!d;’
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# print paragraph if it contains AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
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sed -e ‘/./{H;$!d;}’ -e ‘x;/AAA/!d;/BBB/!d;/CCC/!d’
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# print paragraph if it contains AAA or BBB or CCC
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sed -e ‘/./{H;$!d;}’ -e ‘x;/AAA/b’ -e ‘/BBB/b’ -e ‘/CCC/b’ -e d
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gsed ‘/./{H;$!d;};x;/AAA|BBB|CCC/b;d’ # GNU sed only
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# print only lines of 65 characters or longer
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sed -n ‘/^.{65}/p’
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# print only lines of less than 65 characters
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sed -n ‘/^.{65}/!p’ # method 1, corresponds to above
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sed ‘/^.{65}/d’ # method 2, simpler syntax
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# print section of file from regular expression to end of file
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sed -n ‘/regexp/,$p’
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# print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive)
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sed -n ‘8,12p’ # method 1
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sed ‘8,12!d’ # method 2
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# print line number 52
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sed -n ’52p’ # method 1
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sed ’52!d’ # method 2
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sed ’52q;d’ # method 3, efficient on large files
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# beginning at line 3, print every 7th line
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gsed -n ‘3~7p’ # GNU sed only
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sed -n ‘3,${p;n;n;n;n;n;n;}’ # other seds
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# print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive)
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sed -n ‘/Iowa/,/Montana/p’ # case sensitive
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SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES:
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# print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions
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sed ‘/Iowa/,/Montana/d’
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# delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file (emulates “uniq”).
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# First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted.
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sed ‘$!N; /^(.*)n1$/!P; D’
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# delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file. Beware not to
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# overflow the buffer size of the hold space, or else use GNU sed.
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sed -n ‘G; s/n/&&/; /^([ -~]*n).*n1/d; s/n//; h; P’
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# delete all lines except duplicate lines (emulates “uniq -d”).
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sed ‘$!N; s/^(.*)n1$/1/; t; D’
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# delete the first 10 lines of a file
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sed ‘1,10d’
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# delete the last line of a file
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sed ‘$d’
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# delete the last 2 lines of a file
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sed ‘N;$!P;$!D;$d’
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# delete the last 10 lines of a file
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sed -e :a -e ‘$d;N;2,10ba’ -e ‘P;D’ # method 1
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sed -n -e :a -e ‘1,10!{P;N;D;};N;ba’ # method 2
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# delete every 8th line
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gsed ‘0~8d’ # GNU sed only
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sed ‘n;n;n;n;n;n;n;d;’ # other seds
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# delete lines matching pattern
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sed ‘/pattern/d’
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# delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as “grep ‘.’ “)
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sed ‘/^$/d’ # method 1
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sed ‘/./!d’ # method 2
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# delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first; also
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# deletes all blank lines from top and end of file (emulates “cat -s”)
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sed ‘/./,/^$/!d’ # method 1, allows 0 blanks at top, 1 at EOF
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sed ‘/^$/N;/n$/D’ # method 2, allows 1 blank at top, 0 at EOF
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# delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first 2:
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sed ‘/^$/N;/n$/N;//D’
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# delete all leading blank lines at top of file
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sed ‘/./,$!d’
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# delete all trailing blank lines at end of file
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sed -e :a -e ‘/^n*$/{$d;N;ba’ -e ‘}’ # works on all seds
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sed -e :a -e ‘/^n*$/N;/n$/ba’ # ditto, except for gsed 3.02.*
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# delete the last line of each paragraph
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sed -n ‘/^$/{p;h;};/./{x;/./p;}’
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SPECIAL APPLICATIONS:
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# remove nroff overstrikes (char, backspace) from man pages. The ‘echo’
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# command may need an -e switch if you use Unix System V or bash shell.
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sed “s/.`echo b`//g” # double quotes required for Unix environment
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sed ‘s/.^H//g’ # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V and then Ctrl-H
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sed ‘s/.x08//g’ # hex expression for sed 1.5, GNU sed, ssed
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# get Usenet/e-mail message header
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sed ‘/^$/q’ # deletes everything after first blank line
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# get Usenet/e-mail message body
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sed ‘1,/^$/d’ # deletes everything up to first blank line
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# get Subject header, but remove initial “Subject: ” portion
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sed ‘/^Subject: */!d; s///;q’
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# get return address header
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sed ‘/^Reply-To:/q; /^From:/h; /./d;g;q’
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# parse out the address proper. Pulls out the e-mail address by itself
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# from the 1-line return address header (see preceding script)
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sed ‘s/ *(.*)//; s/>.*//; s/.*[:<] *//’
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# add a leading angle bracket and space to each line (quote a message)
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sed ‘s/^/> /’
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# delete leading angle bracket & space from each line (unquote a message)
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sed ‘s/^> //’
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# remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags)
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sed -e :a -e ‘s/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba’
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# extract multi-part uuencoded binaries, removing extraneous header
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# info, so that only the uuencoded portion remains. Files passed to
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# sed must be passed in the proper order. Version 1 can be entered
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# from the command line; version 2 can be made into an executable
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# Unix shell script. (Modified from a script by Rahul Dhesi.)
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sed ‘/^end/,/^begin/d’ file1 file2 … fileX | uudecode # vers. 1
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sed ‘/^end/,/^begin/d’ “$@” | uudecode # vers. 2
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# sort paragraphs of file alphabetically. Paragraphs are separated by blank
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# lines. GNU sed uses v for vertical tab, or any unique char will do.
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sed ‘/./{H;d;};x;s/n/={NL}=/g’ file | sort | sed ‘1s/={NL}=//;s/={NL}=/n/g’
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gsed ‘/./{H;d};x;y/n/v/’ file | sort | sed ‘1s/v//;y/v/n/’
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# zip up each .TXT file individually, deleting the source file and
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# setting the name of each .ZIP file to the basename of the .TXT file
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# (under DOS: the “dir /b” switch returns bare filenames in all caps).
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echo @echo off >zipup.bat
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dir /b *.txt | sed “s/^(.*).TXT/pkzip -mo 1 1.TXT/” >>zipup.bat