Using sed to replace special characters

Question

This works to replace tom with sam in a file:

sed 's/tom/sam/g' file_1 > file_2

But this does not:

sed 's/*****/sam/g' file_1 > file_2

To replace the special characters ***** with the word sam. I have tried with a slash \* but errors.

Answer 1

You need to escape the special characters with a backslash \ in front of the special character, e.g.:

sed 's/\*/t/g' test.txt > test2.txt

Answer 2

You need to escape the special characters with a backslash \ in front of the special character. For your case, escape every special character with backslash \.

eg: **** boy is ****

sed 's/\*\*\*\*/sam/g' filename

ans :

sam boy is sam