CODEWITHSUNDEEP
shellunixsed
user384636
user384636

Reputation: 579

How to escape the ampersand character while using sed

I want to replace all single quotes in a string with two single quotes using sed. But when the string contains the & character, the sed command is not replacing single quotes that come after that. How can I escape the & character so that the single quotes after it are still replaced?

Upvotes: 23

Views: 25053

Answers (3)

cppcoder
cppcoder

Reputation: 23145

It's working for me

bash>echo "'This is a string with 'single quote' & '&'" | sed "s/'/''/g"
''This is a string with ''single quote'' & ''&''

Upvotes: 0

Darshan Rivka Whittle
Darshan Rivka Whittle

Reputation: 34071

It's easier to answer if you post your code, but I'm guessing you're not escaping the ampersand. Change & to \& if you want a literal ampersand.

See section 3.1.2 of The sed FAQ for a more detailed explantion, if you're curious.

Upvotes: 13

Lev Levitsky
Lev Levitsky

Reputation: 65851

You don't need to escape anything in the input:

$ echo "123 ' foo & b'ar" | sed "s/'/''/g"
123 '' foo & b''ar

However, in the 'replacement' part of the s command & has a special meaning: it means 'match'. That's why the above command can be re-written as:

$ echo "123 ' foo & b'ar" | sed "s/'/&&/g"
123 '' foo & b''ar

Escape it with a \ like everything else that needs to be escaped, if needed:

$ echo "123 ' foo & b'ar" | sed "s/'/'\&'/g"
123 '&' foo & b'&'ar

Upvotes: 35

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