Find-Replace text in files from command line

In Linux one can easily find and replace some text in files by using the sed application. In Windows, I couldn’t find a decent build in equivalent. I ended by using the ported version of sed for Windows. I works quite well using the same syntax and doesn’t require to be installed. Just make sure sed.exe, libiconv2.dll and libintl3.dll are existing in the same folder or on the classpath.

One should know any file altered by sed for Windows will result in this file being also converted from Windows line ending (using 2 characters: Carriage Return + Line Feed) to Linux line endings (only 1 character: Line Feed). This can sometime give some strange results. To overcome this, one should make sure the last replacement in the file is set to replace the Line Feeds back to Carriage Return + Line Feed:

sed -i "s/$/\r/" "%DIR%\file.txt"

Some other useful sed commands are available from sed sourcefourge:

FILE SPACING:
 # double space a file
 sed G
 # double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file
 # should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text.
 sed '/^$/d;G'
 # triple space a file
 sed 'G;G'
 # undo double-spacing (assumes even-numbered lines are always blank)
 sed 'n;d'
 # insert a blank line above every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/{x;p;x;}'
 # insert a blank line below every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/G'
 # insert a blank line above and below every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/{x;p;x;G;}'
NUMBERING:
 # number each line of a file (simple left alignment). Using a tab (see
 # note on '\t' at end of file) instead of space will preserve margins.
 sed = filename | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'
 # number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned)
 sed = filename | sed 'N; s/^/     /; s/ *\(.\{6,\}\)\n/\1  /'
 # number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank
 sed '/./=' filename | sed '/./N; s/\n/ /'
 # count lines (emulates "wc -l")
 sed -n '$='
TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION:
 # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
 sed 's/.$//'               # assumes that all lines end with CR/LF
 sed 's/^M$//'              # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M
 sed 's/\x0D$//'            # works on ssed, gsed 3.02.80 or higher
 # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
 sed "s/$/`echo -e \\\r`/"            # command line under ksh
 sed 's/$'"/`echo \\\r`/"             # command line under bash
 sed "s/$/`echo \\\r`/"               # command line under zsh
 sed 's/$/\r/'                        # gsed 3.02.80 or higher
 # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
 sed "s/$//"                          # method 1
 sed -n p                             # method 2
 # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
 # Can only be done with UnxUtils sed, version 4.0.7 or higher. The
 # UnxUtils version can be identified by the custom "--text" switch
 # which appears when you use the "--help" switch. Otherwise, changing
 # DOS newlines to Unix newlines cannot be done with sed in a DOS
 # environment. Use "tr" instead.
 sed "s/\r//" infile >outfile         # UnxUtils sed v4.0.7 or higher
 tr -d \r <infile >outfile            # GNU tr version 1.22 or higher
 # delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line
 # aligns all text flush left
 sed 's/^[ \t]*//'                    # see note on '\t' at end of file
 # delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line
 sed 's/[ \t]*$//'                    # see note on '\t' at end of file
 # delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line
 sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'
 # insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)
 sed 's/^/     /'
 # align all text flush right on a 79-column width
 sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,78\}$/ &/;ta'  # set at 78 plus 1 space
 # center all text in the middle of 79-column width. In method 1,
 # spaces at the beginning of the line are significant, and trailing
 # spaces are appended at the end of the line. In method 2, spaces at
 # the beginning of the line are discarded in centering the line, and
 # no trailing spaces appear at the end of lines.
 sed  -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,77\}$/ & /;ta'                     # method 1
 sed  -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,77\}$/ &/;ta' -e 's/\( *\)\1/\1/'  # method 2
 # substitute (find and replace) "foo" with "bar" on each line
 sed 's/foo/bar/'             # replaces only 1st instance in a line
 sed 's/foo/bar/4'            # replaces only 4th instance in a line
 sed 's/foo/bar/g'            # replaces ALL instances in a line
 sed 's/\(.*\)foo\(.*foo\)/\1bar\2/' # replace the next-to-last case
 sed 's/\(.*\)foo/\1bar/'            # replace only the last case
 # substitute "foo" with "bar" ONLY for lines which contain "baz"
 sed '/baz/s/foo/bar/g'
 # substitute "foo" with "bar" EXCEPT for lines which contain "baz"
 sed '/baz/!s/foo/bar/g'
 # change "scarlet" or "ruby" or "puce" to "red"
 sed 's/scarlet/red/g;s/ruby/red/g;s/puce/red/g'   # most seds
 gsed 's/scarlet\|ruby\|puce/red/g'                # GNU sed only
 # reverse order of lines (emulates "tac")
 # bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted
 sed '1!G;h;$!d'               # method 1
 sed -n '1!G;h;$p'             # method 2
 # reverse each character on the line (emulates "rev")
 sed '/\n/!G;s/\(.\)\(.*\n\)/&\2\1/;//D;s/.//'
 # join pairs of lines side-by-side (like "paste")
 sed '$!N;s/\n/ /'
 # if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it
 sed -e :a -e '/\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta'
 # if a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line
 # and replace the "=" with a single space
 sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n=/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'
 # add commas to numeric strings, changing "1234567" to "1,234,567"
 gsed ':a;s/\B[0-9]\{3\}\>/,&/;ta'                     # GNU sed
 sed -e :a -e 's/\(.*[0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/;ta'  # other seds
 # add commas to numbers with decimal points and minus signs (GNU sed)
 gsed -r ':a;s/(^|[^0-9.])([0-9]+)([0-9]{3})/\1\2,\3/g;ta'
 # add a blank line every 5 lines (after lines 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)
 gsed '0~5G'                  # GNU sed only
 sed 'n;n;n;n;G;'             # other seds
SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES:
 # print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of "head")
 sed 10q
 # print first line of file (emulates "head -1")
 sed q
 # print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates "tail")
 sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba'
 # print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates "tail -2")
 sed '$!N;$!D'
 # print the last line of a file (emulates "tail -1")
 sed '$!d'                    # method 1
 sed -n '$p'                  # method 2
 # print the next-to-the-last line of a file
 sed -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x              # for 1-line files, print blank line
 sed -e '1{$q;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x  # for 1-line files, print the line
 sed -e '1{$d;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x  # for 1-line files, print nothing
 # print only lines which match regular expression (emulates "grep")
 sed -n '/regexp/p'           # method 1
 sed '/regexp/!d'             # method 2
 # print only lines which do NOT match regexp (emulates "grep -v")
 sed -n '/regexp/!p'          # method 1, corresponds to above
 sed '/regexp/d'              # method 2, simpler syntax
 # print the line immediately before a regexp, but not the line
 # containing the regexp
 sed -n '/regexp/{g;1!p;};h'
 # print the line immediately after a regexp, but not the line
 # containing the regexp
 sed -n '/regexp/{n;p;}'
 # print 1 line of context before and after regexp, with line number
 # indicating where the regexp occurred (similar to "grep -A1 -B1")
 sed -n -e '/regexp/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}' -e h
 # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
 sed '/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d'
 # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)
 sed '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d'
 # grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates "egrep")
 sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d    # most seds
 gsed '/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/!d'                        # GNU sed only
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs)
 # HHsed v1.5 must insert a 'G;' after 'x;' in the next 3 scripts below
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;'
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;/BBB/!d;/CCC/!d'
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA or BBB or CCC
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d
 gsed '/./{H;$!d;};x;/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/b;d'         # GNU sed only
 # print only lines of 65 characters or longer
 sed -n '/^.\{65\}/p'
 # print only lines of less than 65 characters
 sed -n '/^.\{65\}/!p'        # method 1, corresponds to above
 sed '/^.\{65\}/d'            # method 2, simpler syntax
 # print section of file from regular expression to end of file
 sed -n '/regexp/,$p'
 # print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive)
 sed -n '8,12p'               # method 1
 sed '8,12!d'                 # method 2
 # print line number 52
 sed -n '52p'                 # method 1
 sed '52!d'                   # method 2
 sed '52q;d'                  # method 3, efficient on large files
 # beginning at line 3, print every 7th line
 gsed -n '3~7p'               # GNU sed only
 sed -n '3,${p;n;n;n;n;n;n;}' # other seds
 # print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive)
 sed -n '/Iowa/,/Montana/p'             # case sensitive
SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES:
 # print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions
 sed '/Iowa/,/Montana/d'
 # delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file (emulates "uniq").
 # First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted.
 sed '$!N; /^\(.*\)\n\1$/!P; D'
 # delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file. Beware not to
 # overflow the buffer size of the hold space, or else use GNU sed.
 sed -n 'G; s/\n/&&/; /^\([ -~]*\n\).*\n\1/d; s/\n//; h; P'
 # delete all lines except duplicate lines (emulates "uniq -d").
 sed '$!N; s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/; t; D'
 # delete the first 10 lines of a file
 sed '1,10d'
 # delete the last line of a file
 sed '$d'
 # delete the last 2 lines of a file
 sed 'N;$!P;$!D;$d'
 # delete the last 10 lines of a file
 sed -e :a -e '$d;N;2,10ba' -e 'P;D'   # method 1
 sed -n -e :a -e '1,10!{P;N;D;};N;ba'  # method 2
 # delete every 8th line
 gsed '0~8d'                           # GNU sed only
 sed 'n;n;n;n;n;n;n;d;'                # other seds
 # delete lines matching pattern
 sed '/pattern/d'
 # delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as "grep '.' ")
 sed '/^$/d'                           # method 1
 sed '/./!d'                           # method 2
 # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first; also
 # deletes all blank lines from top and end of file (emulates "cat -s")
 sed '/./,/^$/!d'          # method 1, allows 0 blanks at top, 1 at EOF
 sed '/^$/N;/\n$/D'        # method 2, allows 1 blank at top, 0 at EOF
 # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first 2:
 sed '/^$/N;/\n$/N;//D'
 # delete all leading blank lines at top of file
 sed '/./,$!d'
 # delete all trailing blank lines at end of file
 sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}'  # works on all seds
 sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/N;/\n$/ba'        # ditto, except for gsed 3.02.*
 # delete the last line of each paragraph
 sed -n '/^$/{p;h;};/./{x;/./p;}'
SPECIAL APPLICATIONS:
 # remove nroff overstrikes (char, backspace) from man pages. The 'echo'
 # command may need an -e switch if you use Unix System V or bash shell.
 sed "s/.`echo \\\b`//g"    # double quotes required for Unix environment
 sed 's/.^H//g'             # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V and then Ctrl-H
 sed 's/.\x08//g'           # hex expression for sed 1.5, GNU sed, ssed
 # get Usenet/e-mail message header
 sed '/^$/q'                # deletes everything after first blank line
 # get Usenet/e-mail message body
 sed '1,/^$/d'              # deletes everything up to first blank line
 # get Subject header, but remove initial "Subject: " portion
 sed '/^Subject: */!d; s///;q'
 # get return address header
 sed '/^Reply-To:/q; /^From:/h; /./d;g;q'
 # parse out the address proper. Pulls out the e-mail address by itself
 # from the 1-line return address header (see preceding script)
 sed 's/ *(.*)//; s/>.*//; s/.*[:<] *//'
 # add a leading angle bracket and space to each line (quote a message)
 sed 's/^/> /'
 # delete leading angle bracket & space from each line (unquote a message)
 sed 's/^> //'
 # remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags)
 sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba'
 # extract multi-part uuencoded binaries, removing extraneous header
 # info, so that only the uuencoded portion remains. Files passed to
 # sed must be passed in the proper order. Version 1 can be entered
 # from the command line; version 2 can be made into an executable
 # Unix shell script. (Modified from a script by Rahul Dhesi.)
 sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' file1 file2 ... fileX | uudecode   # vers. 1
 sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' "$@" | uudecode                    # vers. 2
 # sort paragraphs of file alphabetically. Paragraphs are separated by blank
 # lines. GNU sed uses \v for vertical tab, or any unique char will do.
 sed '/./{H;d;};x;s/\n/={NL}=/g' file | sort | sed '1s/={NL}=//;s/={NL}=/\n/g'
 gsed '/./{H;d};x;y/\n/\v/' file | sort | sed '1s/\v//;y/\v/\n/'
 # zip up each .TXT file individually, deleting the source file and
 # setting the name of each .ZIP file to the basename of the .TXT file
 # (under DOS: the "dir /b" switch returns bare filenames in all caps).
 echo @echo off >zipup.bat
 dir /b *.txt | sed "s/^\(.*\)\.TXT/pkzip -mo \1 \1.TXT/" >>zipup.bat