sed -f Script Syntax

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, Martin McCormick wrote:

> Warren Block writes:
>> sed(1) says it should be -E. Looks like it will only work on the whole
>> script.
>
> 	Many thanks. I have had -e work many times

But -e does not mean what you think here:

-E      Interpret regular expressions as extended (modern) regular
         expressions rather than basic regular expressions (BREs).  The
         re_format(7) manual page fully describes both formats.

-e command
         Append the editing commands specified by the command argument to
         the list of commands.

So sed -E means "interpret regular expressions as extended" and -e is 
followed by a command:

sed -E -e 's/a/b/' -e 's/x/y/'

> if you call sed from either the command line or a shell script as in
>
> sed -f somefile
>
> with somefile being 1 or more lines of sed commands. When the
> file itself is the script, the first line actually calls sed
> from within the file.

I'm not clear on why you want to do it that way instead of simply 
calling sed from a shell script, but sed -Ef seems to do what you want.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA