# sd - s[earch] & d[isplace] `sd` is a simple, user-friendly find & replace command line tool. ## Features **Painless regular expressions** Use regex syntax that you already know from JavaScript, Python, and Rust. No need to learn special syntax or eccentrisms of `sed` or `awk`. Easily access your captured groups with `$1`, `$2`. **String-literal mode** In string-literal mode, you don't need to escape any special characters - its simply unnecessary. **Easy to read, easy to write** Find & replace expressions are split up and in most cases unescaped, which contributes to readability and makes it easier to spot errors in your regexes. ## Comparison to sed While sed is frighteningly powerful, `sd` focuses on doing just one thing and doing it well. Some cherry-picked examples, where `sd` shines: - Replace newlines with commas: - sed: `sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\r/,/g'` vs - sd: `sd -r '\r' ','` - Extracting stuff out of strings with special characters - sd: `echo "{((sample with /path/))}" | sd -r '\{\(\(.*(/.*/)\)\)\}' '$1'` - sed - incorrect, but closest I could get after 15 minutes of struggle - `echo "{((sample with /path/))}" | sed 's/{((\.\*\(\/.*\/\)))}/\1/g'` Note: although `sed` has a nicer regex syntax with `-r`, it is not portable and doesn't work on, say, MacOS or Solaris.