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rated 0 times [ 1] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 1756 / 3 Years ago, mon, november 22, 2021, 4:37:07

I want to write backslashes in a file, and I try to substitute some text with the value from a variable:

$ TEST=etchello

$ echo $TEST

etchello

But the backslash is missing when I tying to replace them using sed -i

$ sed -i "s/target_value/$TEST/" $(pwd)/test.txt

results "etchello" in test.txt

I expect the file to contain etchello.

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answered 3 Years ago tresein · Accepted Answer

This is sed interpreting the in your variable as an escape character. You can escape special characters using printf %q:

sed -i "s/target_value/$(printf %q "$TEST")/" test.txt

Alternatively, your scenario would have worked if you had defined your variable as:

TEST='etchello'

Note the single quotes around the sting, that causes $TEST to contain the literal string.