sed to find and replace a string with special characters

Like this:

sed -i "s@'/loft-run'\+@@" warmblanket.js 

• the basic form for substitution is s/before/after/
• use double quotes if you want to treat single quotes
• chosen the @ delimiter here instead of basic /, you can pick up most of the ASCII table

sed doesn't know about literal strings, just regexps and backreference-enabled text. To do anything with literal strings just use a tool that understands them such as awk:

$ cat file window.location = '/loft-run'+ResourceManager.hotlegs + mainPage + ".html#" + newhash; $ awk \ -v old="window.location = '/loft-run'+ResourceManager.hotlegs + mainPage + \".html#\" + newhash;" \ -v new='window.location = ResourceManager.hotlegs + mainPage + ".html#" + newhash;' \ 's=index($0,old) { $0=substr($0,1,s-1) new substr($0,s+length(old)) } 1' file window.location = ResourceManager.hotlegs + mainPage + ".html#" + newhash; 

Note the use of " instead of ' around the old=... string because that string includes 's and shell doesn't allow 's inside a '-delimited string.