Comments on: Prepend text to a file http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/07/prepend-text-to-a-file/ News, tips, software, reviews, and more for Mac OS X, iPhone, iPad Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Pete http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/07/prepend-text-to-a-file/#comment-122039 Pete Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:54:53 +0000 http://osxdaily.com/?p=8183#comment-122039 Both of these are risky - if you screw it up, you end up trashing your original file. Not only does the 2nd version work in all UNIXes, but it probably works better if file.txt is a huge (many megabytes) text file. This may be even better: sed -i.bak -e '1i\ Hello there' x.pl This way, at least you keep a backup, just in case. Both of these are risky – if you screw it up, you end up trashing your original file.

Not only does the 2nd version work in all UNIXes, but it probably works better if file.txt is a huge (many megabytes) text file.

This may be even better:

sed -i.bak -e ’1i\
Hello there’ x.pl

This way, at least you keep a backup, just in case.

]]> By: lar3ry http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/07/prepend-text-to-a-file/#comment-121848 lar3ry Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:25:23 +0000 http://osxdaily.com/?p=8183#comment-121848 You're trying too hard... (echo "Text to prepend"; cat file.txt) > /tmp/tempfile && mv /tmp/tempfile file.txt You’re trying too hard…

(echo “Text to prepend”; cat file.txt) > /tmp/tempfile && mv /tmp/tempfile file.txt

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