Replacing string with \n not newline but slash is missing

Question

a.txt:

^variable=test\n

a.sh

#!/bin/ksh  
string=aAxdf\ndafsfasdf\n   
sed -i '/\^variable=/c\^variable='"$string"'' a.txt

output: a.txt contains below contents without slash

^variable=aAxdfndafsfasdfn

Expected output:

^variable=aAxdf\ndafsfasdf\n

So a literal backslash followed by a literal n? Is `ksh` the only shell you can use? — knittl, Jan 05 '23 at 08:14
we have bash as well but need the expected output as string value generated dynamically from another tool — user1894029, Jan 05 '23 at 08:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 05 '23 at 08:16

0

Quote your string while assigning your variable and double your backslashes, so they won't be interpreted as a newline character by sed:

#!/bin/ksh  
string='aAxdf\\ndafsfasdf\\n'
sed -i '/\^variable=/c\^variable='"$string"'' a.txt

answered Jan 05 '23 at 08:16

knittl

Thanks for the response. string value generated from another tool how we can append double slashes and quotes – user1894029 Jan 05 '23 at 08:23
@user1894029 String value? How does it end up in the shell script file? – knittl Jan 05 '23 at 09:13

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 05 '23 at 08:32

0

In your a.sh file, you will need to do the following:

It would look like string='aAxdf\\ndafsfasdf\\n'

answered Jan 05 '23 at 08:32

chilli10

2 Answers2