New Line in Sed expression

[ProgramIt]

I was wondering how you would replace certain text with a new line in a sed expression. Such as in

output="this is a test"
output=`echo $output | sed 's/is/\n/'`;
echo $output

and the output is

this
a test

Is there a way to do this? I know getting the new line character in scripts is difficult and I thought using the -e switch with echo might solve it but it didn't. Any other ideas?

- John

[drl]

Hi.

Noting that "is" occurs first in "this", the result depends on quoting or the lack of it.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate sed and quoting.

echo
set +o nounset
LC_ALL=C ; LANG=C ; export LC_ALL LANG
echo "Environment: LC_ALL = $LC_ALL, LANG = $LANG"
echo "(Versions displayed with local utility \"version\")"
version >/dev/null 2>&1 && version "=o" $(_eat $0 $1) sed
set -o nounset

echo
echo " Results:"
output="this is a test"
echo $output | sed  's/is/\n/'

echo
x=`echo $output | sed  's/is/\n/'`
echo $x

echo
x=`echo $output | sed  's/is/\n/'`
echo "$x"

echo
x=$( echo $output | sed  's/is/\n/' )
echo "$x"

exit 0

Produces:

% ./s1

Environment: LC_ALL = C, LANG = C
(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
OS, ker|rel, machine: Linux, 2.6.11-x1, i686
Distribution        : Xandros Desktop 3.0.3 Business
GNU bash 2.05b.0
GNU sed version 4.1.2

 Results:
th
 is a test

th is a test

th
 is a test

th
 is a test

The pages at Quoting may help ... cheers, drl