sed insert line command OSX
Solution 1
You should put a newline directly after the \
:
sed '3i\
text to insert' file
This is actually the behaviour defined by the POSIX specification. The fact that GNU sed allows you to specify the text to be inserted on the same line is an extension.
If for some reason you need to use double quotes around the sed command, then you must escape the backslash at the end of the first line:
sed "3i\\
text to insert" file
This is because a double-quoted string is processed first by the shell, and \
followed by a newline is removed:
$ echo "abc\
def"
abcdef
Solution 2
On OSX you can use:
sed -i.bak '3i\
text to insert
' file
Solution 3
Here's how to do it in one line syntax
sed -i '' -e "2s/^//p; 2s/^.*/text to insert/" file
duplicate second line:
2s/^//p;
replace new line with your text:
2s/^.*/text to insert/
Solution 4
A one-liner for OSX employing ANSI-C quoting:
sed -i '' '3i\'$'\n''text to insert' file
Adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/24299845/901597
Solution 5
This works for me
sed -i '' '3i\
text to insert' file
Comments
-
gdavtor over 2 years
I'm trying to insert text to the third line in a file using sed, and the syntax I've found on other forums is:
sed -i '' "3i\ text to insert" file
When I use this however, I get an error:
sed: 1: "3i\ text to insert": extra characters after \ at the end of i command
I can't seem to figure out what is causing the problem. I'm using OSX, which is why I have an empty ' ' as my extension.
Thanks!