Question

I am writing a script to automate the process of setting up a bunch of Mac’s in a computer lab.

Each system is uniquely identified and I need a method of patching a plist file in several locations with the same string that will be read from the user in the script which is a bash script

The original string is always the same. The patching string is variable depending on the identity of the system the script is being run on. This string is read from the user at the start of the script for various other purposes and stored in $macnum.

Can anybody please provide me a simple solution that can be scripted to perform the task? Thanks.

Answer 1

sed -i "s/plist-macnum-placeholder/$macnum/g' file ...

Where -i means edit the file “in-place” and /g says make the substitution multiple times per line and can be dropped if there is only one.