sed insert line command OSX

Question

I\'m trying to insert text to the third line in a file using sed, and the syntax I\'ve found on other forums is:

sed -i \'\' \"3i\\ text to insert\" file
         


        

Answer 1

You should put a newline directly after the \:

sed '3i\
text to insert' file

This is actually the behaviour defined by the POSIX specification. The fact that GNU sed allows you to specify the text to be inserted on the same line is an extension.

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If for some reason you need to use double quotes around the sed command, then you must escape the backslash at the end of the first line:

sed "3i\\
text to insert" file

This is because a double-quoted string is processed first by the shell, and \ followed by a newline is removed:

$ echo "abc\
def"
abcdef