Replacement on more than one line in text files using Shell

snq · 11-25-2010, 08:28 PM

How can I replace one instance of a word in a text file with a piece of text that spreads several lines ?

e..g I want to replace abcd123

with

Code:

abc1 fdsf
abe2 dfdfd 
asfs fdgdfg
asds  ytryt

you see the above spans multiple lines.

I know sed or awk is the way to go but don't know that how I can introduce new paragraphs using these tools

quanta · 11-25-2010, 08:33 PM

Just use sed with \n:

Code:

sed 's/abcd123/abc1 fdsf\nabe2 dfdfd/' input_file