cli-sedHow to use the CLI to modify the head of a file using sed?

Using the sed command line utility, you can modify the head of a file. sed stands for "stream editor" and can be used to perform editing operations on text streams and files. Here is an example of how to use sed to modify the head of a file:

sed -i '1s/.*/This is the new head of the file/' <file_name>

This command replaces the first line of the file with the text This is the new head of the file.

Code explanation

• sed: The command line utility used for editing streams and files.
• -i: This flag tells sed to edit the file in-place, meaning that it will modify the original file instead of creating a new one.
• 1s/.*/This is the new head of the file/: This is the edit command. The 1 tells sed to edit the first line of the file, the s tells sed to substitute the line, the .* tells sed to match any characters, and the This is the new head of the file is the text that will replace the first line.
• <file_name>: This is the name of the file that will be edited.

Helpful links

• GNU sed manual
• An Introduction to sed

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