sed replaces string by line break but not the other way around [duplicate]

Question

I am trying to replace line breaks, for which I want to use sed (please do not suggest alternative tools). To replace a line break by a string I am trying

sed 's/\n/string/g'

which does not work, at least on my system (bash on Ubuntu 12.04). However the following

sed 's/string/\n/g'

does replace all occurrences of string by a line break.

For instance, consider the following file

hello there

sed 's/\n/ /g' file gives me the same:

hello there

but sed 's/hello/hello\n/g' file gives me a line break:

hello there

Could some body tell me why sed is able to write a new line with \n but not to read it?

devnull · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-05 13:48:53Z

4

sed works on lines of input, you can't replace newlines like that. You need to append lines of input to the pattern space.

sed ':a;$!N;s/\n/string/;ta' inputfile

would replace newlines with string.

edited May 5, 2014 at 13:48

answered May 5, 2014 at 13:42

devnull

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1 Comment

choroba Over a year ago

That's why I would use a different tool :-)

NeronLeVelu · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-05 15:01:48Z

 sed -n '1h;1!H;$x;s/\n/string/gp' YourFile

other method by loading first into buffer and change all at once at the end and print result

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