sed command replace string with string in file path

Question

I want to change some string in file with content in another file

sed -i "s/##END_ALL_VHOST##/r $SERVERROOT/conf/templates/$DOMAIN.conf/g" $SERVERROOT/conf/httpd_config.conf

I need to change string ##END_ALL_VHOST## with content in file httpd_config.conf

Please help :)

r command doesn't work within substitute command... it applies only to all matching address, for ex: sed '/regex/r file' ... it will add contents of file after the matching line, it cannot be used to replace part of line.. you could delete the matching line if you want.. for ex: sed -e '/regex/r file' -e '/regex/d' — Sundeep
– Sundeep, Commented Aug 9, 2018 at 3:59
Is the marker string ###END_ALL_VHOST### part of line (with other text before or after it) or is it the whole line? The difference matters — if it is a line, it can be handled in sed easily enough; if it is part of line, life is difficult in sed. — Jonathan Leffler
– Jonathan Leffler, Commented Aug 9, 2018 at 5:29
@jww has downvoted everyone again so I'm upvoting everyone (except myself of course) to compensate. Sigh... — Ed Morton
– Ed Morton, Commented Aug 10, 2018 at 14:38

keithpjolley · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-09 00:22:44Z

1

Here's a way of doing it. Fancify the cat command as needed.

(pi51 591) $ echo "bar" > /tmp/foo.txt
(pi51 592) $ echo "alpha beta gamma" | sed "s/beta/$(cat /tmp/foo.txt)/"
alpha bar gamma

answered Aug 9, 2018 at 0:22

keithpjolley

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2 Comments

Ed Morton Over a year ago

No, try that when foo.txt contains forward slashes or ampersands or escapes followed by numbers or dollar signs or.....

keithpjolley Over a year ago

Of course it doesn't work for every possible combination of chars. For a simple var it works fine. Is it how I'd do it? Prolly not, but for the swapping out a hostname, where slashes and ampersands and escapes followed by numbers or dollar signs are not allowed - works as advertised.

Ed Morton · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-09 03:57:24Z

1

sed cannot operate on literal strings so it's the wrong tool to use when you want to do just that, as in your case. awk can work with strings so just use that instead:

awk '
BEGIN { old="##END_ALL_VHOST##"; lgth=length(old) }
NR==FNR { new = (NR>1 ? new ORS : "") $0; next }
s = index($0,old) { $0 = substr($0,1,s-1) new substr($0,s+lgth) }
' "$SERVERROOT/conf/templates/$DOMAIN.conf" "$SERVERROOT/conf/httpd_config.conf"

You may need to swap the order of your 2 input files, it wasn't clear from your question.

answered Aug 9, 2018 at 3:57

Ed Morton

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