31

I want to insert file content at specific pattern match. The following is an example: add file2.txt content in file1.txt between <tag> and </tag>.

file1.txt

<html>
<body>
<tag>
</tag>
</body>
</html>

file2.txt

Hello world!!

I have tried following and it didn't work.

# sed "/\<tag\>/ {
h
r file2.txt
g
N
}" file1.txt

<html>
<body>
Hello World!!
<tag>
</tag>
</body>
</html>
Braiam
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Satish
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1 Answers1

63

Try following command:

sed '/<tag>/ r file2.txt' file1.txt

It yields:

<html>
<body>
<tag>
Hello world
</tag>
</body>
</html>

EDIT for explanation why your command doesn't work as you want: The r filename command adds its content at the end of the current cycle or when next input line is read. And you are using the N command which doesn't print anything but reads next line, so at that time Hello world is printed and after that the normal stream of lines.

In my case, it reads line with <tag>, then ends cycle, so prints the line and after it the content of the file and carry on reading until the end.

Birei
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  • is there a way to wrap content with CDATA? – Patrick Ferreira Jun 12 '15 at 08:02
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    I needed to add `-i.bak` to write in a file1.txt. `sed -i.bak '// r file2.txt' file1.txt` – Grisotto Jan 31 '17 at 03:47
  • Anyway to make this work with inserting after `<\tag>`? I tried using `<\\tag>` to escape the backslash but it doesn't work. See my question here for more: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46715401/how-to-insert-file-contents-after-line-match-while-escaping-backslash – DomainsFeatured Oct 12 '17 at 18:11
  • Is there a way we can include the full path to the include file (file2.txt should be like /tmp/file2.txt). I tried this with escaping the forward slash which didn't work – Anoop P Alias Apr 30 '18 at 05:19
  • @Birei is it possible to not print the 'Hello World!!' line, just inset the contents of the file. I can imagine how to delete this line with a second sweep of sed, the question is whether this can be done in one sweep. – Alexander Cska Feb 20 '19 at 13:22