sed invalid command code when using find to loop through files on a Mac

Question

I guess this is a simple question but I seem to be able to understand why this is incorrect.

#!/bin/sh
header=`cat header.txt`
find . -name "*.go" -exec sed -i "" -e "1s|^|$header|" {} \;

This piece of script should add the content of header.txt to all .go files. But instead it outputs: sed: 1: "./restapi/operations/su ...": invalid command code .

I have found this answer, but the issue is still there.

Aha, that is a step further. Now left with `sed: 1: "1s|^|/* ...": unescaped newline inside substitute pattern` — Bob van Luijt, Mar 21 '17 at 18:30
probably has to do with header.txt not being read with new lines? — Bob van Luijt, Mar 21 '17 at 18:31
It would probably be easier to loop over the filenames and then `cat header.txt $filename > TEMP; mv TEMP $filename`. \[edit\] but then you'd lose the permissions. — Harvey, Mar 21 '17 at 18:35
Not sure I understand, that would go as an argument for `-e` ? — Bob van Luijt, Mar 21 '17 at 18:36

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '17 at 18:37

0

You can use:

find . -name "*.go" -exec bash -c \
'cat header.txt "$1" > "$1".tmp && mv "$1".tmp "$1"' - {} \;

answered Mar 21 '17 at 18:37

anubhava

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That loses any custom permissions set on the original files. – Harvey Mar 21 '17 at 18:38
1

Thanks mate, this was driving me nuts, haha. I only don't understand the minus sign in the ` - {} \;`. Thanks :-) – Bob van Luijt Mar 21 '17 at 18:39
Hyphen is a dummy placeholder to populate `$0` and `{}` is used to populate `$1` – anubhava Mar 21 '17 at 18:40

sed invalid command code when using find to loop through files on a Mac

1 Answers1