Linux / UNIX: Sed Replace Newline

last updated in Categories , , , , , , , ,

How do I replace newline (\n) with sed under UNIX / Linux operating systems?

You can use the following sed command:

sed '{:q;N;s/\n//g;t q}' /path/to/data.txt

You can replace newline (\n) with * character or word ‘FOO’:

sed '{:q;N;s/\n/*/g;t q}' /path/to/data.txt

OR

sed '{:q;N;s/\n/FOO/g;t q}' /path/to/data.txt

OR replace it with tab (\t):

sed '{:q;N;s/\n/\t/g;t q}' /path/to/data.txt

To update file use -i option:

sed -i '{:q;N;s/\n/\t/g;t q}' /path/to/data.txt

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.

4 comment

  2. It doesnt work for me :(

    $ sed ‘{:q;N;s/\n/\t/g;t q}’ /fi/fa/foo.fu
    sed: 1: “{:q;N;s/\n/\t/g;t q}”: unexpected EOF (pending }’s)

  3. Doesn’t work for me in Cygwin, if there are 17 lines the first line has 16 of the replacement, line 2 will have 15 etc until the last line does not have the replacement.

    Have a question? Post it on our forum!

Tagged as: Tags , , , ,