Does anyone know how to insert text at the top and bottom of a file using sed?

From the command line use
(Note that these must be completed on separate lines.)
This will insert on the first line of the file.

sed '1i\
your text goes here' file_name > new_filename


This will append on the last line of the file.
sed '$a\
your text goes here' file_name > new_filename


Note also that with sed you have to direct the output and rename the file back. So 'mv new_filename file_name' when you are done with these commands.

Cool this seems to work. The problem I have now is that the string I am trying to insert contains the ' character which conflicts with the sed '1i\ line. Ordaniril they get ignored.

If I try to escape this string:

sed '1i\
EXEC PR_DbConfigStart \'test.txt\', \'10\', \'DESCRIPTION\' \
GO ' < $FILENAME > $TMPFILENAME

I get this error
syntax error at line 8 : `'' unmatched

if I try to build the string in an environment variable and rely on substitution, the string does nt seem to get substituted.


DBCONFIGSTART="EXEC PR_DbConfigStart 'test.txt', '10', 'DESCRIPTION' \nGO"

sed '1i\
$DBCONFIGSTART ' <test2.txt

producing this output

$DBCONFIGSTART
rest of file text.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can resolve this

Typically in unix you will need to interchange double quotes and single quotes - when one or the other are used within..like this.

So with the sed command use:

sed "1i\
your text has some's apostrophes's in here" file_name > new_filename

Ouch,

I get the error:
sed: command garbled: 1iEXEC PR_DbConfigStart 'test.txt', '10', 'DESCRIPTION'

when I try this.

Here is the script im using

#!/usr/bin/ksh
FILENAME=test2.txt
TMP=.$TMP
TMPFILENAME=$FILENAME$TMP
sed -e "1i\
EXEC PR_DbConfigStart 'some text', '10', 'DESCRIPTION' " < $FILENAME >$TMPFILENAME

You need a second backslash:
sed -e "1i\\

What about for the statement that appends data to the end of the file?

sed "$a\\
PR_DbConfigEnd $FILENAME " <$FILENAME >$TMPFILENAME

I get the error message:

sed: command garbled: \


If I remove the second backslash:

sed "$a\
PR_DbConfigEnd $FILENAME " <$FILENAME >$TMPFILENAME


I get this error message:

sed: command garbled: PR_DbConfigEnd test2.txt