Mastering Linux Shell Scripting - Second Edition

Limiting substitution

We saw how the g flag modifies all occurrences in the same line and this goes for the entire file lines.

What if we want to limit our edits to a specific line? Or a specific line range?

We can specify the ending line or the line range like this:

$ sed '2s/old text/new text/' myfile 

The preceding command will only modify the second line of the file. The following command will modify only the third to the fifth lines:

$ sed '3,5s/old text/new text/' myfile  

The following command will modify from the second line to the end of the file:

$ sed '2,$s/old text/new text/' myfile