I've following sed command working fine -
sed '/search_pattern1/ !s/pattern1/pattern2/" file

Now, I want to search two patterns - search_pattern1 and search_pattern2 .


How can put these into above sed statement ?

Thanks in advance.

Different sed dialects might not want the backslash before the | alternation operator.

This doesn't work.

Do you get a syntax error, or doesn't it do what you expect? Your request can be interpreted at least two ways (lines not containing search_pattern1 or search_pattern2 should have pattern1 replaced with pattern2; or, lines not containing search_pattern1 should have pattern1 replaced with pattern2, and lines not containing search_pattern2 should have some unspecified substitution applied to them) so perhaps you can elaborate with example input, example output, and what exactly you have tried so far.

OK, here is what I want to do

1. I want perform some opreation on the lines which does not have search_pattern1 or search_pattern2.

2. And the operation is - in those lines replace pattern1 by pattern2, if at all pattern1 is present. if pattern1 is not present leave them as it is.


In the case where I 've only one search_pattern, The following command works file -

sed '/search_pattern1/ !s/pattern1/pattern2/" file


Now, I want to add one more word to search "search_pattern2" with "or" condition, I'm not able to fit that into sed.

something like -

sed '/search_pattern1|search_pattern1/ !s/pattern1/pattern2/" file

should work,but it sed treats it like a single word - "search_pattern1|search_pattern1". it does not give a syntaxk error.

Did you try with a backslash before the |?

Can you try the following and let me know whether it works?

sed '/search_pattern1/ !s/pattern1/pattern2/;/search_pattern2/ !s/pattern1/pattern2/' file