Tools

sed Cheat Sheet

Print-ready cheat sheet for sed, organized for fast lookup, study, and desk-side use

Source
GNU sed Manual (gnu.org/software/sed)
License
MIT
Updated
2026-03-27

Sample

What's in this cheat sheet

  • Basics
  • Substitution
  • Addresses
  • Delete & Print
  • Insert & Append
  • Hold Space
  • Multiple Commands
  • In-place Editing
  • Regex
  • Common Patterns

Running sed

sed 's/old/new/' file.txt          # substitute first match per line
sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt         # substitute all matches per line
sed -n '5p' file.txt               # print only line 5
sed '3d' file.txt                  # delete line 3
echo "hello" | sed 's/hello/hi/'   # pipe input

Command-Line Flags

-nSuppress automatic printing; only print with `p`
-e 'cmd'Execute a sed command (chain multiple with `-e`)
-f script.sedRead commands from a file
-i[suffix]Edit file in-place (optional backup suffix)
-E / -rUse extended regular expressions

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