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From: gwc@root.co.uk (Geoff Clare)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: i command in sed - only one address?
Message-ID: <2698@root44.co.uk>
Date: 1 May 91 13:51:25 GMT
References: <1991Apr29.131718.26624@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Apr29.201315.7790@athena.mit.edu>
Organization: UniSoft Ltd., London, England
Lines: 33

ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes:
|    I would like to put a line before ranges in a file.  Something like
| 
| sed '/A/,/B/i\
| INSERTED LINE' < file1 > file2
| 
| but when I try this, I get an error message saying ``only one address.''

jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:

>  Because, as sed is pointing out, the 'i' command only takes one address. 
>You need to loop through the lines in the region, inserting the text before
>each of them.  Something like this:

>/A/{
>	:loop
>	i\
>INSERTED LINE
>	/B/b
>	n
>	b loop
>}

There's a much simpler way:

sed '/A/,/B/{
i\
INSERTED LINE
}' < file1 > file2

-- 
Geoff Clare <gwc@root.co.uk>  (Dumb American mailers: ...!uunet!root.co.uk!gwc)
UniSoft Limited, London, England.   Tel: +44 71 729 3773   Fax: +44 71 729 3273