Insert a new line before every 5th line in a file

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I need to insert a new line containing the string "QUERY" above every 5 lines.

The below piece of code inserts a new line after every 5th line

awk '{print $0} !(NR%5) {print "QUERY"}'

sed 'n;n;n;n;G;' --> I do not know how to give "QUERY" string here

But I need to insert it before every 5th line.

2

Hi

awk '!(NR%5) {print "QUERY"} {print $0}' file

Guru.

3

Wow, that works fine :slight_smile: !! How to make the sed to work?

4

Hi

sed 'n;n;n;n;s/.*/QUERY\n&/;' file

Guru.

1 Like
5

Some sed do not know \n in the replacement part:

sed 'n;n;n;n;s/^/QUERY\
/' infile

sed 'n;n;n;n;i\
query\
' infile

--
GNU sed:

sed '0~5s/^/QUERY\n/' infile
1 Like