linux insert file content before string match

Question

Hi I am having some problems with this.

I have a original file:

$cat original.txt
User has access to the system

And a second file with the content I want to add to the original file:

$cat toAdd.txt
Anna

The result should be as follows:

$cat original.txt
User Anna has access to the system

I tried with several options such as:

sed '/has/e cat toAdd.txt' original.txt

but it is not working :-(

Please help!!

Suggested solution does not work in this case. – MrTeleBird Oct 09 '14 at 10:57 — MrTeleBird, Oct 09 '14 at 10:57
Explain why the suggested solution does not work then! – Lee Taylor Oct 09 '14 at 11:44 — Lee Taylor, Oct 09 '14 at 11:44

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-09T10:59:24.403

1

Through awk,

$ awk 'FNR==NR{var=$0; next}{for (i=1;i<=NF;i++){if($i=="has"){$i=var" "$i}}}1' toAdd.txt original.txt
User Anna has access to the system

edited Oct 09 '14 at 10:59

answered Oct 09 '14 at 10:34

Avinash Raj

Hi, thanks! however that was only a simple example. I would prefer a solution where I can pass the pattern to match, and not only based on its position on the string. In this example "has" would be the pattern to match, and then insert the text from file before of it. – MrTeleBird Oct 09 '14 at 10:46
Oh, did you try the answer in the original question? – Avinash Raj Oct 09 '14 at 10:49
yes, i tried i.e. sed '/has/ r toAdd.txt' original.txt, but it does not work – MrTeleBird Oct 09 '14 at 10:53
@MrTeleBird try my update.. – Avinash Raj Oct 09 '14 at 10:59

1 Answers1