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"The solution is to just use gnu sed with https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gnu-sed)" Problem for me is I use more than just MacOS and Linux. I would have install GNU sed on every OS I use. I make small OS images for booting from USB. I use a non-busybox multi-call binary as the initial userland to conserve space, part of filesystem embedded in the kernel (sort of like initrd on Linux I guess). Early in the boot and setup process I use sed in scripts. Thus I would have to make sure there was a copy of GNU sed installed, preferably added to the multi-call binary. Not sure the work is really worth it just for a few convenience features. I can do anything I need to do with BSD sed just as well as with GNU sed. Instead, the solution I chose is to write sed scripts for NetBSD's sed. These work on Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Plan9, etc., old or new. There is one feature it has that GNU does not: "-a"; it can be used to do true (but limited) "in-place editing" without creating a temp file. Not sure why but NetBSD has since changed their sed to be more FreeBSD and GNU-compatible, e.g., adding "-i" and "-g/-G", to enable automatic temp file creation then removal^1 and GNU regex, respectively. However if we start using these "features" everywhere, then our scripts may not work with older userlands. 1. This is often called "in-place" editing, but if one examines the source code one will see there is still a temp file (tmpfname) created. We are being spared the step of manually creating then removing a temp file, but we still need the requisite filesystem space available for one. |