How folks, I've an odd situation, in sed if one wants to add a variable substitution to a sed appendage, for example: ------------------ P=456 sed "/123/ { a\ $P }" test >test1 ------------------ It replaces the $P variable correctly, but I get a "sed: command garbled: /123/ { a456" I want 456 under 123. Am I missing a piece here? Thanks for help....

In the past, I had a similar problem, and I couldn't get sed's append to work. I found a solution in the sed FAQ: http://www.student.northpark.edu/pemente/sed/sedfaq.txt P=456 sed "/123/{G;s/$/${P}/;}" datafile.txt The above works on Solaris 7 and Red Hat Linux 7.1

Neat solution - that approach never occurred to me (and works on HP-UX also). And if you want to add two lines: P=456 Q=789 sed "/123/{G;s/$/${P}/;G;s/$/${Q}/;}" datafile.txt But the append function works for me as below - first with just a single line, secondly appending two lines: P=456 sed -e "/123/a\\ $P" datafile.txt P=456 Q=789 sed -e "/123/a\\ $P\\ $Q" datafile.txt

Nails, The suggestion provided works, however, here's the other piece that does not seem to work: #!/bin/sh -x P=456 Str="AAAA/$P/AAAA" sed "/123/{G;s/$/${Str}/;}" datafile.txt end result: ----------- sed: command garbled: /123/{G;s/$/AAAA/456/AAAA/;} Is there another way for addressing $P in the Str variable string?

Lamos: The slashes, /, which have a special meaning, are messing up the sed command. Does escaping them give you the required output: P=456 Str="AAAA\/$P\/AAAA" sed "/123/{G;s/$/${Str}/;}" datafile.txt

Jim, I tried your suggestion. I tried this before minus the extra "\" and "-e" in your suggestion, which worked nicely. Also to resolve the "Str" substitution above, I added "\" before the $P variable that resolved my problem. P=456 sed -e "/123/a\\ $P" datafile.txt Jim/Nails thanks a bunch for your help. :-)

Jim: Both Lamos and I missed the second \ after the append: P=456 sed "/123/ {a\\ $P }" datafile.txt which is probably why I've never been able to get sed's append to work. I'm learning sed from O'Reilly's 'sed & awk' and this text doesn't apparently show that. Would you happen to know why the second \ is required? Off Topic: are you still considering that other issue we've emailed each other about -) Nails