How to write complex sed query which got special char

Question

I am struggling to replace a string with a special character. I am using the command below and I tried to escape each special character, but I am still getting an error.

If I don't use special characters, the query is working fine, but I have to use special characters.

String to find: ../../../profileone String to Replace: @mysettings/future-system-one

Query:

sed -i s/"../../../profileone"/"@mysettings/future-system-one"/g *.fileExtension'

I wanted to try this command from jenkins pipeline.

The issue is that your pattern and replacement contain the forward slash, which is also used as the default regex separator. Although you *can* make it work by backslash-escaping the forward slashes, it's simpler IMHO to change the separator. See for example [How to sed and replace string with a folder path](https://askubuntu.com/questions/408960/how-to-sed-and-replace-string-with-a-folder-path) — steeldriver, May 22 '21 at 11:47

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '21 at 12:14

2

Following the comment by @steeldriver, you can change the pattern delimiters from / to _:

sed -i s_"../../../profileone"_"@mysettings/future-system-one"_g *.fileExtension'

so that you don't need to escape all the / in this way:

sed -i s/"..\/..\/..\/profileone"/"@mysettings\/future-system-one"/g *.fileExtension'

answered May 22 '21 at 12:14

mattb

304
1
10

Thank you, terdon and mattb below two commands saved me: sed 's|"../../../profileone"|"@mysettings/future-system-one"|g' *.fileExtension sed -i s_"../../../profileone"_"@mysettings/future-system-one"_g *.fileExtension – L V Prasad May 22 '21 at 15:26

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 22 '21 at 13:01

You don't actually have any special characters there, so you don't need to escape anything. The only issue is that you are using / as the pattern delimiter, so just use another character and it should work fine:

sed 's|../../../profileone|@mysettings/future-system-one|g' *.fileExtension

Note how the sed command is quoted, that is important.

Now, your question shows the target strings as ../../../profileone and @mysettings/future-system-one, but your command also includes double quotes. If those are supposed to be part of the strings, use this instead:

sed 's|"../../../profileone"|"@mysettings/future-system-one"|g' *.fileExtension

How to write complex sed query which got special char

2 Answers2