This is the problem: you use "/" to separate the several fields for the s-command of sed. Using "/" is the default, but basically the s-command in sed looks like this:

Code:

sed 's<separator><search-regexp><separator><replacement><separator><options>' infile > outfile

Where "<separator>" can be any character - whatever is used after "s" will be looked for throughout the expression. For instance:

Code:

sed 's/foo/bar/g' infile > outfile

will change any (option "g") "foo" to "bar". The following would do absolutely the same, replacing the "/" with "_":

Code:

sed 's_foo_bar_g' infile > outfile

As your search string contains "/" characters itself "sed" has no possibility to discern what belongs to the search/replacement regexp and what is a separator. Therefore change your separator to some character you don't use in your regexp or insert escape characters into your search regexp before, by prepending "/" (and other metacharacters) with a backslash: "\/"

in ksh:

Code:

var="$(print - "$var" | sed s'/\//\\&/g')"     # "01/02/03" -> "01\/02\/03"

or in bash:

Code:

var="$(echo "$var" | sed s'/\//\\&/g')"

I hope this helps.

bakunin