How to replace a path with another path in sed?

path sed csh
Brian Postow picture Brian Postow · Aug 21, 2012 · Viewed 94.5k times · Source

I have a csh script (although I can change languages if it has any relevance) where I have to:

sed s/AAA/BBB/ file

The problem is that AAA and BBB are paths, and so contain '/'. AAA is fixed, so I can say:

sed s/\\\/A\\\/A\\\A/BBB/ file

However, BBB is based on variables, including $PWD. How do I escape the '/' in $PWD?

OR is there some other way I should be doing this entirely?

Answer

Lev Levitsky picture Lev Levitsky · Aug 21, 2012

sed can use any separator instead of / in the s command. Just use something that is not encountered in your paths:

s+AAA+BBB+

and so on.

Alternatively (and if you don't want to guess), you can pre-process your path with sed to escape the slashes:

pwdesc=$(echo $PWD | sed 's_/_\\/_g')

and then do what you need with $pwdesc.

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