Replacing a string in a file that contains ${user.home} using sed in Linux

Question

I would like to replace string in file contains ${user.home} using sed in Linux but I'm unable to do it. I tried below options using sed but failed.

The input file:

<property name="dev.home"  value="${user.home}"/>

sed -i "s/$${user.home}/r_str/g" 1.xml
sed -i "s/${user.home}/r_str/g" 1.xml
sed -i "s/\$\{user\.home\}/r_str/g" 1.xml

<property name="dev.home"  value="${user.home}"/>

<property name="dev.home"  value="/dev"/>

Try your last option with single quotes ‘ instead of double “ — zzxyz, Mar 19 '18 at 04:34
[You can't parse \[X\]HTML with regex](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/3776858) — Cyrus, Mar 19 '18 at 04:38
Choose the right tool first. I suggest to use an XML/HTML parser (xmlstarlet or something comparable). — Cyrus, Mar 19 '18 at 04:39
they're asking how to replace a string in a file; it has nothing to do with bash not using '.' in the variable name. — activedecay, Mar 19 '18 at 04:40

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 19 '18 at 04:34

2

You don't need to escape the curly braces {}

echo '${user.home}' | sed "s/\${user.home}/lol$/"
lol$

answered Mar 19 '18 at 04:34

activedecay

Cyrus · Answer 2 · 2018-03-19T05:27:55.270

2

Find and update attribute with xmlstarlet:

xmlstarlet edit --omit-decl --update 'property[@value="${user.home}"]/@value' --value '/dev' file

Output:

<property name="dev.home" value="/dev"/>

edited Mar 19 '18 at 05:27

answered Mar 19 '18 at 04:49

Cyrus