How to substitute a character or expression for a newline using sed?

Question

How can I substitute a character or expression for a newline using the Unix sed command?

(For character substitution, I'd normally use tr ';' "\n" command.)

Answer 1

1. Substitute ; character (semicolon) for a newline using Sed:

   sed "s/;/\\
   /g"
   

   or

   sed "s/;/\\$(echo -e '\n')/g"
   

2. Substitute [^A-Za-z] expression (anything but alphabetic characters) for a newline using Sed:

   sed "s/[^A-Za-z]/\\
   /g"
   

   or

   sed "s/[^A-Za-z]/\\$(echo -e '\n')/g"
   

Answer 2

a backslash before a literal newline is the portable way to get a newline in sed:

$ echo "a,b" | sed 's/,/\
/'
a
b

Answer 3

How about:

sed $'s/;/\\\n/g' inputFile

$ cat inputFile
this;is;a;text
$ sed $'s/;/\\\n/g' inputFile
this
is
a
text

Answer 4

This might work for you (GNU sed & Bash):

sed 'y/;/\n/' file

or

sed $'y/;/\\n/' file

or very convolutedly:

sed -e 'G' -e ':a' -e 's/\(;\)\(.*\(.\)\)/\3\2/' -e 'ta' -e 's/.$//' file