Find a string and add multiple lined string saved in variable before

Question

I have been trying quite a few ways with no luck. I have a file named test.txt that has some lorem ipsum and the text [staging: production] I simply want to add a few lines that I have saved in a variable in before it.

If you could explain where I have gone wrong with any of the below it would be much appreciated!

#!/bin/bash

test="lala\
kjdsh"

sed '/^#$/{N; /[staging: production]/ i \
<Location /cgis> \
</Location>\

}' ./test.txt


sed -i -e 's/\[staging\: production\]/\$test/g' ./test.txt
#sed -i 's/Lorem/beautiful/g' test.txt

#awk -v data=$test '{A[NR]=$0}/\[staging\: production\]/{ print data }' test.txt > testfile.txt

#read -a text <<<$(cat test.txt)
#echo ${#text[@]}
#for i in ${text[@]};
#do
#   echo -n $i;
#   sleep .2;
#done

#ed -s test.txt <<< $'/\[staging\: production\]/s/lalalala/g\nw'

#awk -v data=$test '/\(/\[staging\: production\]\)/ { print data }' test.txt > testfile.txt

# && mv testfile.txt test.txt

#sed -i -e '/\(\[staging\: production\]\)/r/$test\1/g' test.txt

#sed "/\(\[staging\: production\]\)/s//$test\1/g" test.txt

When you use a backslash as a line continuation character, the lines are joined as if there's no newline. Remove the backslash and the newlines will be preserved. — Dennis Williamson
– Dennis Williamson, Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 23:37

tzelleke · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-13 15:30:38Z

1

sed -i -e 's/\[staging\: production\]/\$test/g' ./test.txt

won't work because inside singe quotes BASH will not expand \$test.
Therefore you don't need to escape the $.

If you want to substitute with the contents of the variable $test do:

sed -i -e 's/\[staging: production\]/'$test'/g' ./test.txt

You also do not need to escape :

To insert before your pattern works for me this way:

sed -i -e '/\[staging: production\]/ i '$test'' ./test.txt

However to preserve the linebreak inside the variable I needed to define:

test="lala\nkjdsh"

Please note the \n to encode the linebreak.

edited Aug 13, 2012 at 15:30

answered Aug 13, 2012 at 15:23

tzelleke

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3 Comments

gazzwi86 Over a year ago

That appears to be working, however, it is not preserving the new lines in my variable.

gazzwi86 Over a year ago

I keep getting sed: 1: "/[staging: production\ ...": command i expects \ followed by text

tzelleke Over a year ago

well as I said - I had to encode the linebreaks inside the variable via \n - that did preserve the linebreaks in my environment.

frankc · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-13 15:19:22Z

0

Try it in perl, it seems to work fine:

perl -pe '{$rep="what\nnow"; s/(\[foo foo2\])/$rep$1/}' file

answered Aug 13, 2012 at 15:19

frankc

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Comments

potong · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-13 19:24:50Z

0

This might work for you (GNU sed):

test="lala\\                                   
kjdsh"
sed '/\[staging: production\]/i\'"$test" test.txt

N.B. \\ in the variable and the variable is surrouded by "'s in the sed command.

answered Aug 13, 2012 at 19:24

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potong

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