[SOLVED] Appending line with special characters in shell

Issue

I want to appends each line of the file as below:

file.txt :

adminsrv.tar

Output:

- archive: "packages/images/adminsrv.tar"

I tried several method like the one below and ended up with error:

input=/var/tmp/file.txt  
while read -r line
Do
sed -i 's|$line|" - archive: "packages//images//$line"'
done < $input

Solution

You can just insert new text before every line using sed and there is no need to run a shell loop:

sed 's~.*~- archive: "packages/images/&"~' "$input"

- archive: "packages/images/adminsrv.tar"

This sed uses .* for search for any text and then it substitutes matched text with replacement text and & which is back-reference of the matched text.

Answered By - anubhava

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (WPSolving Admin)