Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Command-Line Syntax

The syntax for invoking sed has two forms:

sed [-n] [-e] 'command' file(s)
sed [-n]  -f  scriptfile file(s)

The first form allows you to specify an editing command on the command line, surrounded by single quotes. The second form allows you to specify a scriptfile, a file containing sed commands. Both forms may be used together, and they may be used multiple times. If no file (s) is specified, sed reads from standard input.