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I have a mysqldump file in which I want to replace the following text <a href="/tag/ with <a href="http://www.mydomain.com/tag/ but can't find a way to correctly escape all special characters.

I'm using the following command (+ a few other variants)
cat wordpress_posts.sql | sed 's%/<a href="\/\tag\/\/<a href="\http:/\/\www.mydomain.com/\tag/\/%g' > wordpress_posts_new.sql
but it's not working.

Can anybody help?

Update 1: Turns out that the source string in the mysqldump isn't <a href="/tag/ but <a href=\"/tag/ (note the extra backslash after the equal symbol)
Here's a pastebin of one line of the SQL file which contains the string I want to replace: http://pastebin.com/8G5mcxpJ

I tried all 3 suggested versions of the sed command, but none would replace the above string with <a href=\"http://www.mydomain.com/tag/ (yes I added the backslash after the equal symbol)

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  • All of the answers below work with the data as specified in your question. In your real data there is an additional `\` that needs to be dealt with. GIGO ! Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:30
  • Have you checked my Update, 50 minutes ago...? Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:33
  • It doesn't matter really - non of the answers have been updated since, they all work with your original data. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:35
  • quanta answered 19 minutes ago with a working answer based on my updated question, which worked. Thus I accepted his answer. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:41

3 Answers 3

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No need to pipe cat to sed:

$ sed 's/<a href="\/tag\//<a href="http:\/\/www.mydomain.com\/tag\//g' wordpress_posts.sql

  • Remove the percentage sign
  • You only need to escape the slash
  • Specify an in-place editing (-i) if you want
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  • 1
    This gives me an sed: -e expression #1, char 3: unterminated s' command` error. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 8:56
  • Are you sure you specify enough 3 delimiters 's/pattern/replacement/g'? Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 9:32
  • Well I simply copy-pasted your command and changed www.mydomain.com to my own domain, so I suppose it should have worked. I updated my initial post and have added a pastebin link with a line of the sql file containing the string I want to replace. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 11:45
  • Escape the additional backslash with a backslash sed 's/<a href=\\"\/tag\//<a href=\\"http:\/\/www.mydomain.com\/tag\//g' wordpress_posts.sql. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:16
  • Yeap now it worked :) Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 12:26
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You don't have to escape /, you can just use any other delimiter:

sed 's#<a href=\\"/tag/#<a href="http://www.mydomain.com/tag/#' wordpress_posts.sql
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  • I hoped that this would work but it didn't :( original and new file have the same size, plus with a grep I can still see instances of <a href="/tag/. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 8:58
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    If this pattern occurs several times per line, you have to add a g at the end, like sed '#foo#bar#g' myFile Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 9:22
  • Tried that too, but no. I updated the post with a link to a pastebin containing one line of the sql dump which contains the string I want to replace. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 11:43
  • The backslash at href=\"/tag/ was missing, I updated my answer. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 13:31
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    People should really use other delimiters, as you've pointed out. "Picket fences" cause confusion and more often lead to syntax error. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 18:35
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$ cat wordpress_posts.sql | sed 's/\/tag\//http:\/\/www.mydomain.com\/tag\//' > wordpress_posts.sql
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  • Tried that too, but it didn't work :( I've added a link to a pastebin with the string I want to find and replace to my initial post (Update 1). Maybe this will help.. Commented Aug 19, 2012 at 11:45

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