sed: Replace lines matching a pattern that contains forward slashes?

Question

I know this question has been asked before, I just can't seem to get the correct syntax for my sed command.

I need to replace OPP/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-npo/npo-stub with OPP/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-ica/npo-ica

A snippet of the file I am replacing it is the following:

config.xml

<compareType>PLAIN</compareType>
<pattern>
OPP/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-npo/npo-stub
</pattern>
<branches>
<com.sonyuser.hudson.plugins.gerrit.trigger.hudsontrigger.data.Branch>
<compareType>ANT</compareType>
<pattern>master</pattern>
</com.sonyuser.hudson.plugins.gerrit.trigger.hudsontrigger.data.Branch>
</branches>
${REPO_MIRROR}/OPP/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-npo/npo-stub

I have tried the following,

sed -i '/^\/OPP/\com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-npo/\npo-stub\/OPP/\com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-ica/\npo-ica/g' config.xml

Do you want to replace that string only when the line starts with that or anywhere in the file? — Pushpesh Kumar Rajwanshi, Dec 10 '18 at 11:24
see also: [How to use different delimiters for sed substitute command?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5864146/use-slashes-in-sed-replace) — Sundeep, Dec 10 '18 at 11:48

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 10 '18 at 11:25

You need to specify s command and replace the /\ with \/. There are some other typos here as well (\/ at the start is not necessary). Also, escape dots to match literal dots. A good idea is to use some other delimiter here instead of /, e.g. ,, because you have / chars in the regex and replacement parts.

You may use

sed -i 's,^OPP/com\.user\.opp\.orchest\.po\.services\.stub-npo/npo-stub,OPP/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-ica/npo-ica,' file

See the online demo

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '18 at 11:36

In your command, you are missing s for substitution and have wrongly escaped \ character. Also as you replied to my comment, that you want to replace it from anywhere in the file, you don't have to use ^ character in your regex. And dot . in regex means any character so they need to be escaped too.

You can use this command,

sed -i 's/OPP\/com\.user\.opp\.orchest\.po\.services\.stub-npo\/npo-stub/OPP\/com.user.opp.orchest.po.services.stub-ica\/npo-ica/g' yourfilename

this worked perfectly, thank you and @Wiktor Stribiżew for your help and knowledge — user3292394, Dec 10 '18 at 14:52

sed: Replace lines matching a pattern that contains forward slashes?

2 Answers2