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Less frequently used commands

Though perhaps less frequently used than those in the previous section, some very small yet useful SED scripts can be built with these commands.

`y/source-chars/dest-chars/'

(The / characters may be uniformly replaced by any other single character within any given y command.) Transliterate any characters in the pattern space which match any of the source-chars with the corresponding character in dest-chars. Instances of the / (or whatever other character is used in its stead), \, or newlines can appear in the source-chars or dest-chars lists, provide that each instance is escaped by a \. The source-chars and dest-chars lists must contain the same number of characters (after de-escaping).

`a\'

`text'

[At most one address allowed.] Queue the lines of text which follow this command (each but the last ending with a \, which will be removed from the output) to be output at the end of the current cycle, or when the next input line is read.

`i\'

`text'

[At most one address allowed.] Immediately output the lines of text which follow this command (each but the last ending with a \, which will be removed from the output).

`c\'

`text'

Delete the lines matching the address or address-range, and output the lines of text which follow this command (each but the last ending with a \, which will be removed from the output) in place of the last line (or in place of each line, if no addresses were specified). A new cycle is started after this command is done, since the pattern space will have been deleted.

`='

[At most one address allowed.] Print out the current input line number (with a trailing newline).

`l'

Print the pattern space in an unambiguous form: non-printable characters (and the \ character) are printed in C-style escaped form; long lines are split, with a trailing \ character to indicate the split; the end of each line is marked with a $.

`r filename'

[At most one address allowed.] Queue the contents of filename to be read and inserted into the output stream at the end of the current cycle, or when the next input line is read. Note that if filename cannot be read, it is treated as if it were an empty file, without any error indication.

`w filename'

Write the pattern space to filename. The filename will be created (or truncated) before the first input line is read; all w commands (including instances of w flag on successful s commands) which refer to the same filename are output through the same FILE stream.

`D'

Delete text in the pattern space up to the first newline. If any text is left, restart cycle with the resultant pattern space (without reading a new line of input), otherwise start a normal new cycle.

`N'

Add a newline to the pattern space, then append the next line of input to the pattern space. If there is no more input then SED exits without processing any more commands.

`P'

Print out the portion of the pattern space up to the first newline.

`h'

Replace the contents of the hold space with the contents of the pattern space.

`H'

Append a newline to the contents of the hold space, and then append the contents of the pattern space to that of the hold space.

`g'

Replace the contents of the pattern space with the contents of the hold space.

`G'

Append a newline to the contents of the pattern space, and then append the contents of the hold space to that of the pattern space.

`x'

Exchange the contents of the hold and pattern spaces.

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