Linux / Unix: Sed Substitute Multiple Patterns [ Find & Replace ]

I‘m using the date +’%D_%T’ to store Unix system date and time in a shell variable called $_now:

_now=”$(date +’%D_%T’)”
echo $_now
Outputs:
01/20/12_16:10:42

I’d like to replace / and : with _. I’m aware of the following sed command:

sed ‘s/\//_/g
> s/:/_/g’ <<<"$_now"
Outputs:
01_20_12_16_14_09

How do I specify two pattern within the same sed command to replace | and : with _ so that I can get output as 01_20_12_16_10_42?

You can use any one of the following sed substitute find and replace multiple patterns:

sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g' -e 's/Find/Replace/g' <<<"$var"
sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g' -e 's/Find/Replace/g' < inputFile > outputFile
out=$(sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g' -e 's/Find/Replace/g' <<<"$var")

sed 's/Find/Replace/g;s/Find/Replace/g' <<<"$var"
sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g;s/Find/Replace/g' <<<"$var"
sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g;s/Find/Replace/g' < inputFile > outputFile
out=$(sed -e 's/Find/Replace/g;s/Find/Replace/g' <<<"$var")

Examples: Find And Replace Sed Substitute Using a Singe Command Line

_now="$(sed -e 's/\//_/g;s/:/_/g' <<<$(date +'%D_%T'))"
echo $_now

Sample outputs:

01_20_12_16_22_21

Here is another version:

_now=$(sed 's/[\/:]/_/g' <<<$(date +'%D_%T'))
echo "$_now"

Sample outputs:

01_20_12_16_24_42

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

5 comment

Alternatively, one could tell `date` the desired format, like date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M

Just do:

now=`date +”%m_%d_%y_%H_%M_%S”`
echo $now

Man was showing sed not date command…

I have a not well experience with awk and sed. if any find the solution?
I have a two variable like..
$var1=a-45afd4
a-fdfgh3 ##here two word in one column and may you can say in row
$var2=a-45afd4 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-fdfgh3 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-hfdj3e string1 string2 string3 string4
a-jkkl3l string1 string2 string3 string4

i want to find $var1 data in $var2 and the output should be
Example: a-45afd4 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-fdfgh3 string1 string2 string3 string4

##rest all column row should not come

What is the output of “date -u +%V`uname`|sha512sum|sed ‘s/\W//g'”?

sylvainulg says:
January 23, 2012 at 10:10 am
Alternatively, one could tell `date` the desired format, like date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M
LOL LOLSKI says:
December 21, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Just do:
now=`date +”%m_%d_%y_%H_%M_%S”`
echo $now
gabriel says:
April 1, 2013 at 3:52 pm
Man was showing sed not date command…
Panna says:
November 25, 2014 at 4:04 pm
I have a not well experience with awk and sed. if any find the solution?
I have a two variable like..
$var1=a-45afd4
a-fdfgh3 ##here two word in one column and may you can say in row
$var2=a-45afd4 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-fdfgh3 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-hfdj3e string1 string2 string3 string4
a-jkkl3l string1 string2 string3 string4
i want to find $var1 data in $var2 and the output should be
Example: a-45afd4 string1 string2 string3 string4
a-fdfgh3 string1 string2 string3 string4
##rest all column row should not come
SANDY says:
March 9, 2016 at 3:50 pm
What is the output of “date -u +%V`uname`|sha512sum|sed ‘s/\W//g'”?

Still, have a question? Get help on our forum!