Sed: 'sed: 1: invalid command code R' on Mac OS X
A few days ago I wrote about how we’d been using Sed to edit multiple files and while those examples were derived from what we’d been using on Ubuntu I realised that they didn’t actually work on Mac OS X.
For example, the following command:
sed -i 's/require/include/' RakefileThrows this error:
sed: 1: "Rakefile": invalid command code RWhat I hadn’t realised is that on the Mac version of sed the '-i' flag has a mandatory suffix, as described in this post.
The appropriate section of the man page for sed on the Mac looks like this:
-i extension Edit files in-place, saving backups with the specified extension. If a zero-length extension is given, no backup will be saved. It is not recommended togive a zero-length extension when in-place editing files, as you risk corruption or partial content in situations where disk space is exhausted, etc.
Whereas on Ubuntu the suffix is optional so we see this:
-i[SUFFIX], --in-place[=SUFFIX] edit files in place (makes backup if extension supplied)
In order to get around this we need to provide a blank suffix when using the '-i' flag on the Mac:
sed -i "" 's/require/include/' RakefileI didn’t RTFM closely enough the first time!
About the author
I'm currently working on short form content at ClickHouse. I publish short 5 minute videos showing how to solve data problems on YouTube @LearnDataWithMark. I previously worked on graph analytics at Neo4j, where I also co-authored the O'Reilly Graph Algorithms Book with Amy Hodler.