cli-sedHow do I use sed to add quotes around a string in a command line interface?

Sed (stream editor) is a powerful command line tool used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline). It can be used to add quotes around a string in a command line interface.

The following example shows how to use sed to add double quotes around a string:

echo "Hello World" | sed 's/\(.*\)/"\1"/'

The output of the above command will be:

"Hello World"

The command works by using the s command to substitute the pattern \(.*\) with the string "\1". The \(.*\) pattern matches any character (.) zero or more times (*) and stores the match in a memory buffer denoted by \1. The \1 is then replaced with the string "\1" which adds double quotes around the matched string.

The following list explains the parts of the command:

• echo "Hello World": Prints the string "Hello World" to the standard output.
• |: A pipe symbol which passes the output of the previous command to the next command.
• sed 's/\(.*\)/"\1"/': The sed command which performs the substitution.
• \(.*\): A pattern which matches any character (.) zero or more times (*).
• \1: A memory buffer which stores the match of the pattern.
• "\1": The string which is substituted for the match of the pattern.

For more information about using sed to add quotes around a string, please refer to the following links:

• Sed - An Introduction and Tutorial
• Sed Tutorial – Advanced Sed Substitution Examples

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