12 Helpful sed Commands for Linux

sed is a powerful and useful tool in Unix/Linux for editing the content (files) line by line, including inserts, appends, changes, and deletes. Furthermore, it supports regular expressions, so it can match complex patterns. Commonly it is used to find and replace the strings in files like configuration files, bash scripts, SQL files, etc.

The sed commands are mostly abstracted from the ‘ed’ text editor. The sed command allows us to quickly remove or replace the content without having to open a file.

For editing purposes, we have several text editors available in Linux, such as vi, emacs, vim, and jed. However, the sed utility will function with no limitations on any standard Unix or Linux terminal. Once you understand how syntax patterns work, it is pretty easy to use sed in Linux. This is why most experienced Linux users use the sed command since it allows them to perform powerful tasks, like substitute, insert, or delete text in a file or stream programmatically.