How to replace a character within a matched pattern using ampersand (&)

Question

When we match a pattern using sed, the matched pattern is stored in the \"ampersand\" (&) variable. IS there a way to replace a character in this matched pattern using the a

Answer 1

This might work for you (GNU sed and Bash):

sed 's/apple1/sed "s|1|2|" <<<"&"/e' file