String replacement shell script on AIX

Question

I am using AIX, and there is not an -i option available in the version of sed I am using:

sed: illegal option -- i
Usage:  sed [-n] Script [File ...]
        sed [-n] [-e Script] ... [-f Script_file] ... [File ...]

I want to replace the path of the directory in one of the file using a script; I am trying like this:

WORKDIR="/workdir/liv/spool"
ARCHIVE="u/user/new"

sed 's/$WORKDIR/$ARCHIVE/ig' test.dat > abc
mv abc test.dat

which gives the error:

sed: Function s/$WORKDIR/$STRATIXARCHIVE/ig cannot be parsed.

I would like to replace all occurrences same as $WORKDIR with $$ARCHIVE

Solution

Shell variables only resolve between Double Quotes (").

sed "s/$WORKDIR/$ARCHIVE/ig" test.dat > abc (Double quotes)

Would work if not for the forward slashes. Sed can use any character to delimit those input fields and forward slash is perhaps not the best choice due to it's use for directory paths. For example you can use this instead:

sed "s#$WORKDIR#$ARCHIVE#ig" test.dat > abc

Comments

[glenn jackman]

It won't, because there are slashes in the variable contents: use different delimiters for the s command: sed "s:$WORKDIR:$ARCHIVE:ig" test.dat > abc