sed command to replace a string from one file with entire contents of another file

I want to write a sed (or awk) command to replace a string from one file with the entire contents of another file. Note that second file from which I want to get the content has more than one line. I tried this:

sed -e "s/PLACEHOLDER/$(sed 's:/:\/:g' TestOutput.txt)/" SQLInput.txt

but got an error saying sed: -e expression #1, char 22: unterminated 's' command

Answers:

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Method 1

try

sed -i '/PLACEHOLDER/ r TestOutput.txt' SQLInput.txt

where

• -i edit in place
• /PLACEHOLDER/ search for pattern
• r TestOutput.txt read file

note that /PLACEHOLDER/ is not deleted.

to have it deleted

sed -i -e '/PLACEHOLDER/ r TestOutput.txt' -e s/PLACEHOLDER// SQLInput.txt

where

• -e /PLACEHOLDER/d will delete entire line with PLACEHOLDER
• -e s/PLACEHOLDER// will delete PLACEHOLDER string

Method 2

A sed code is simpler in this case, but since there’s also an awk tag on this question:

awk 'function readfile (file) { getline var < file ; return var }
     BEGIN { RS="^$" }; gsub(/PLACEHOLDER/,readfile("TestOutput.txt"))
' SQLInput.txt

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