bashtr

tr command - how to replace the string "\n" with an actual newline (\n)

I would like to use the tr command to replace all occurrences of the string "\n" with a new line (\n).

I tried tr '\\n' '\n' but this just seems to match any '\' and any 'n'

Solution

  • Here's how to do it with sed:

    sed 's/\\n/\n/g'

    Example usage:

    To replace all occurrences of \n in a file in-place:

    sed -i 's/\\n/\n/g' input_filename

    To replace all occurrences of \n through a pipe, and save into another file

    cat file1 file2 file3 file4 | sed 's/\\n/\n/g' > output_file