[bash] Escape a string for sed search pattern

Posted by Alexander Gladysh on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Alexander Gladysh
Published on 2009-01-02T17:44:15Z Indexed on 2010/04/24 18:43 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 331

Filed under:

bash

|

sed

|

string-manipulation

|

escape

In my bash script I have an external (received from user) string, which I should use in sed pattern.

REPLACE="<funny characters here>"
sed "s/KEYWORD/$REPLACE/g"

How can I escape the $REPLACE string so it would be safely accepted by sed as a literal replacement?

NOTE: The KEYWORD is a dumb substring with no matches etc. It is not supplied by user.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about bash

launching a program from bash causes bash to go to new prompt

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When I run a program from the console, e.g. me@box:~$ firefox I expect the console to log error messages (I think this is std out or std err?) and other items from the program, firefox in this case. But today I notice that bash just opens the program and goes to a new prompt, e.g. me@box:~$… >>> More
How to debug a .bash_profile

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Every command fails with "command not found" after changing .bash_profile?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Is there any fundamental difference between piping in mac and linux?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
ps -e | grep bash sample output from a linux machine: 1128 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 7491 pts/7 00:00:00 bash 12651 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 16145 pts/2 00:00:00 bash sample output from a mac machine: 58352 ttys000 0:00.09 login -pfl username /bin/bash -c exec -la bash /bin/bash 58353 ttys000… >>> More
why is $0 set to -bash?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
First login process name seems to be set to "-bash", but if I subshell then it becomes "bash". for example: root@nowere:~# echo $0 -bash root@nowere:~# bash root@nowere:~# echo $0 bash -bash is causing some scripts to fail, such as . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend… >>> More

Related posts about sed

sed + RE , want to ignore remarked line using sed

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to replace the a string with the word string as the following example down , but if a string exist also after comment then a string will replaced too In which way I can add to the sed command the irregular exp that ignore from the #. [root@localhost tmp]# more test a b aa bb #a #b #aa #bb [root@localhost… >>> More
script to search and replace deprecated functions

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am using the following script to search and replace the deprecated functions in a file with the newer ones. 5 for strFile in `ls deprecated_functions_search_and_replace.txt ` 6 do 7 sed "s/ereg_replace[^\(]*(\([^,]*\),/preg_replace\1('#'.\2.'#',/g" $strFile > temp_file 8 … >>> More
Footer not stretching 100% when horizontally scrolled

as seen on Pro Webmasters - Search for 'Pro Webmasters'
I have a footer which is set to 100% width, but if i size the window smaller so a horizontal scrollbar appears, using the scrollbar shows whitespace to the right of the footer ... its not spanned 100% of the page, just the viewport. <!doctype html> <html lang="en" class="no-js"> <head> … >>> More
What does this regex mean and why

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
$ sed "s/\(^[a-z,0-9]*\)\(.*\)\( [a-z,0-9]*$\)/\1\2 \1/g" desired_file_name I apreciate it even if you only explain part of it or at lest structure it with words as in s\alphanumerical_at_start\something\alphanumerical_at_end\something_else\global Could someone explain what that means, why and… >>> More
Sed problem in a Bash script

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Hello there. I'm having a problem using the sed command . I'm trying to write a bash script that does the following : search for the line that contain :@ then save the line that contained :@ and replace it with new line as in the following: #! /bin/bash echo "Please enter the ip address… >>> More