I would like to perform string substitution in several files.
The string is particular as it is in the form use module_plotting
and I need to avoid the replacement when encountering a string like use module_plotting_debug.
Thanks is advance for the answer(s)
Use word boundary expressions:
sed 's/\<use module_plotting\>/use module_plotting_debug/'
The zero-width patterns \< and \> will match on the boundaries of "words", i.e. between a non-word character and a word character with \< and between a word character and a non-word character with \>.
A "word character" is any alphanumeric character (possibly with taking the current locale into account, I'm uncertain about that).
My re_format(7) manual says that [[:<:]] and [[:>:]] are supposed to be more portable, but these does not seem to work with GNU sed on my system.
sed implementations that support those \</\> extensions. AFAIK, those come from ex/vi, but even on BSDs, they didn't make it to sed until decades later and are still not standard. Note that it would still match inside use module_plotting-debug)