Multi-Line Replacement Between Two Patterns

Sed: Mutli-Line Replacement Between Two Patterns

2018.05.18

This post has some useful sed commands which can be used to perform replacements and deletes between two patterns across multiple lines. For example, consider the following file:

$ cat file
line 1
line 2
foo
line 3
line 4
line 5
bar
line 6
line 7

1) Replace text on each line between two patterns (inclusive):
To perform a replacement on each line between foo and bar, including the lines containing foo and bar, use the following:

$ sed '/foo/,/bar/{s/./x/g}' file
line 1
line 2
xxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxx
line 6
line 7

2) Replace text on each line between two patterns (exclusive):
To perform a replacement on each line between foo and bar, excluding the lines containing foo and bar, use the following:

$ sed '/foo/,/bar/{/foo/n;/bar/!{s/./x/g}}' file
line 1
line 2
foo
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
bar
line 6
line 7

3) Delete lines between two patterns (inclusive):
To delete all lines between foo and bar, including the lines containing foo and bar, use the same replacement sedcommand as shown above, but simply change the replacement expression to a delete.

 

$ sed '/foo/,/bar/d' file
line 1
line 2
line 6
line 7

4) Delete lines between two patterns (exclusive):
To delete all lines between foo and bar, excluding the lines containing foo and bar, use the same replacement sedcommand as shown above, but simply change the replacement expression to a delete.

$ sed '/foo/,/bar/ {/foo/n;/bar/!d}' file
line 1
line 2
foo
bar
line 6
line 7

5) Replace all lines between two patterns (inclusive):
To perform a replacement on a block of lines between foo and bar, including the lines containing foo and bar, use:

$ sed -n '/foo/{:a;N;/bar/!ba;N;s/.*\n/REPLACEMENT\n/};p' file
line 1
line 2
REPLACEMENT
line 6
line 7

How it works:

/foo/{                   # when "foo" is found
  :a                     # create a label "a"
    N                    # store the next line
  /bar/!ba               # goto "a" and keep looping and storing lines until "bar" is found
  N                      # store the line containing "bar"
  s/.*\n/REPLACEMENT\n/  # delete the lines
}
p                        # print

6) Replace all lines between two patterns (exclusive):
To perform a replacement on a block of lines between foo and bar, excluding the lines containing foo and bar, use:

$ sed -n '/foo/{p;:a;N;/bar/!ba;s/.*\n/REPLACEMENT\n/};p' file
line 1
line 2
foo
REPLACEMENT
bar
line 6
line 7

References:
Sed - An Introduction and Tutorial by Bruce Barnett