I have little problem with specifying my variable. I have a file with normal text and somewhere in it there are brackets [ ] (only 1 pair of brackets in whole file), and some text between them. I need to capture the text within these brackets in a shell (bash) variable. How can I do that, please?
Bash/sed:
VARIABLE=$(tr -d '\n' filename | sed -n -e '/\[[^]]/s/^[^[]*\[\([^]]*\)].*$/\1/p')
If that is unreadable, here's a bit of an explanation:
VARIABLE=`subexpression` Assigns the variable VARIABLE to the output of the subexpression.
tr -d '\n' filename Reads filename, deletes newline characters, and prints the result to sed's input
sed -n -e 'command' Executes the sed command without printing any lines
/\[[^]]/ Execute the command only on lines which contain [some text]
s/ Substitute
^[^[]* Match any non-[ text
\[ Match [
\([^]]*\) Match any non-] text into group 1
] Match ]
.*$ Match any text
/\1/ Replaces the line with group 1
p Prints the line
May I point out that while most of the suggested solutions might work, there is absolutely no reason why you should fork another shell, and spawn several processes to do such a simple task.
The shell provides you with all the tools you need:
$ var='foo[bar] pinch'
$ var=${var#*[}; var=${var%%]*}
$ echo "$var"
bar
See: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/073
Sed is not necessary:
var=`egrep -o '\[.*\]' FILENAME | tr -d ][`
But it's only works with single line matches.
Using Bash builtin regex matching seems like yet another way of doing it:
var='foo[bar] pinch'
[[ "$var" =~ [^\]\[]*\[([^\[]*)\].* ]] # Bash 3.0
var="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
echo "$var"
Assuming you are asking about bash variable:
$ export YOUR_VAR=$(perl -ne'print $1 if /\[(.*?)\]/' your_file.txt)
The above works if brackets are on the same line.
What about:
shell_variable=$(sed -ne '/\[/,/\]/{s/^.*\[//;s/\].*//;p;}' $file)
Worked for me on Solaris 10 under Korn shell; should work with Bash too. Replace '$(...)' with back-ticks in Bourne shell.
Edit: worked when given [ on one line and ] on another. For the single line case as well, use:
shell_variable=$(sed -n -e '/\[[^]]*$/,/\]/{s/^.*\[//;s/\].*//;p;}' \
-e '/\[.*\]/s/^.*\[\([^]]*\)\].*$/\1/p' $file)
The first '-e' deals with the multi-line spread; the second '-e' deals with the single-line case. The first '-e' says:
From the line containing an open bracket [ not followed by a close bracket ] on the same line
Until the line containing close bracket ],
substitute anything up to and including the open bracket with an empty string,
substitute anything from the close bracket onwards with an empty string, and
print the result
The second '-e' says:
For any line containing both open bracket and close bracket
Substitute the pattern consisting of 'characters up to and including open bracket', 'characters up to but excluding close bracket' (and remember this), 'stuff from close bracket onwards' with the remembered characters in the middle, and
print the result
For the multi-line case:
$ file=xxx
$ cat xxx
sdsajdlajsdl
asdajsdkjsaldjsal
sdasdsad [aaaa
bbbbbbb
cccc] asdjsalkdjsaldjlsaj
asdjsalkdjlksjdlaj
asdasjdlkjsaldja
$ shell_variable=$(sed -n -e '/\[[^]]*$/,/\]/{s/^.*\[//;s/\].*//;p;}' \
-e '/\[.*\]/s/^.*\[\([^]]*\)\].*$/\1/p' $file)
$ echo $shell_variable
aaaa bbbbbbb cccc
$
And for the single-line case:
$ cat xxx
sdsajdlajsdl
asdajsdkjsaldjsal
sdasdsad [aaaa bbbbbbb cccc] asdjsalkdjsaldjlsaj
asdjsalkdjlksjdlaj
asdasjdlkjsaldja
$
$ shell_variable=$(sed -n -e '/\[[^]]*$/,/\]/{s/^.*\[//;s/\].*//;p;}' \
-e '/\[.*\]/s/^.*\[\([^]]*\)\].*$/\1/p' $file)
$ echo $shell_variable
aaaa bbbbbbb cccc
$
Somewhere about here, it becomes simpler to do the whole job in Perl, slurping the file and editing the result string in two multi-line substitute operations.
var=`grep -e '\[.*\]' test.txt | sed -e 's/.*\[\(.*\)\].*/\1/' infile.txt`
Thanks to everyone, i used Strager's version and works perfectly, thanks alot once again...
var=`grep -e '\[.*\]' test.txt | sed -e 's/.*\[\(.*\)\].*/\1/' infile.txt`
Backslashes (BSL) got munched up ... :
var='foo[bar] pinch'
[[ "$var" =~ [^\]\[]*\[([^\[]*)\].* ]] # Bash 3.0
# Just in case ...:
[[ "$var" =~ [^BSL]BSL[]*BSL[([^BSL[]*)BSL].* ]] # Bash 3.0
var="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
echo "$var"
2 simple steps to extract the text.
split var at [ and get the right part
split var at ] and get the left part
cb0$ var='foo[bar] pinch'
cb0$ var=${var#*[}
cb0$ var=${var%]*} && echo $var
bar
Related
Below is the snippet of a shell script from a larger script. It removes the quotes from the string that is held by a variable. I am doing it using sed, but is it efficient? If not, then what is the efficient way?
#!/bin/sh
opt="\"html\\test\\\""
temp=`echo $opt | sed 's/.\(.*\)/\1/' | sed 's/\(.*\)./\1/'`
echo $temp
Use tr to delete ":
echo "$opt" | tr -d '"'
NOTE: This does not fully answer the question, removes all double quotes, not just leading and trailing. See other answers below.
There's a simpler and more efficient way, using the native shell prefix/suffix removal feature:
temp="${opt%\"}"
temp="${temp#\"}"
echo "$temp"
${opt%\"} will remove the suffix " (escaped with a backslash to prevent shell interpretation).
${temp#\"} will remove the prefix " (escaped with a backslash to prevent shell interpretation).
Another advantage is that it will remove surrounding quotes only if there are surrounding quotes.
BTW, your solution always removes the first and last character, whatever they may be (of course, I'm sure you know your data, but it's always better to be sure of what you're removing).
Using sed:
echo "$opt" | sed -e 's/^"//' -e 's/"$//'
(Improved version, as indicated by jfgagne, getting rid of echo)
sed -e 's/^"//' -e 's/"$//' <<<"$opt"
So it replaces a leading " with nothing, and a trailing " with nothing too. In the same invocation (there isn't any need to pipe and start another sed. Using -e you can have multiple text processing).
If you're using jq and trying to remove the quotes from the result, the other answers will work, but there's a better way. By using the -r option, you can output the result with no quotes.
$ echo '{"foo": "bar"}' | jq '.foo'
"bar"
$ echo '{"foo": "bar"}' | jq -r '.foo'
bar
There is a straightforward way using xargs:
> echo '"quoted"' | xargs
quoted
xargs uses echo as the default command if no command is provided and strips quotes from the input, see e.g. here. Note, however, that this will work only if the string does not contain additional quotes. In that case it will either fail (uneven number of quotes) or remove all of them.
If you came here for aws cli --query, try this. --output text
You can do it with only one call to sed:
$ echo "\"html\\test\\\"" | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
html\test\
The shortest way around - try:
echo $opt | sed "s/\"//g"
It actually removes all "s (double quotes) from opt (are there really going to be any more double quotes other than in the beginning and the end though? So it's actually the same thing, and much more brief ;-))
The easiest solution in Bash:
$ s='"abc"'
$ echo $s
"abc"
$ echo "${s:1:-1}"
abc
This is called substring expansion (see Gnu Bash Manual and search for ${parameter:offset:length}). In this example it takes the substring from s starting at position 1 and ending at the second last position. This is due to the fact that if length is a negative value it is interpreted as a backwards running offset from the end of parameter.
Update
A simple and elegant answer from Stripping single and double quotes in a string using bash / standard Linux commands only:
BAR=$(eval echo $BAR) strips quotes from BAR.
=============================================================
Based on hueybois's answer, I came up with this function after much trial and error:
function stripStartAndEndQuotes {
cmd="temp=\${$1%\\\"}"
eval echo $cmd
temp="${temp#\"}"
eval echo "$1=$temp"
}
If you don't want anything printed out, you can pipe the evals to /dev/null 2>&1.
Usage:
$ BAR="FOO BAR"
$ echo BAR
"FOO BAR"
$ stripStartAndEndQuotes "BAR"
$ echo BAR
FOO BAR
This is the most discrete way without using sed:
x='"fish"'
printf " quotes: %s\nno quotes: %s\n" "$x" "${x//\"/}"
Or
echo $x
echo ${x//\"/}
Output:
quotes: "fish"
no quotes: fish
I got this from a source.
Linux=`cat /etc/os-release | grep "ID" | head -1 | awk -F= '{ print $2 }'`
echo $Linux
Output:
"amzn"
Simplest ways to remove double quotes from variables are
Linux=`echo "$Linux" | tr -d '"'`
Linux=$(eval echo $Linux)
Linux=`echo ${Linux//\"/}`
Linux=`echo $Linux | xargs`
All provides the Output without double quotes:
echo $Linux
amzn
I know this is a very old question, but here is another sed variation, which may be useful to someone. Unlike some of the others, it only replaces double quotes at the start or end...
echo "$opt" | sed -r 's/^"|"$//g'
If you need to match single or double quotes, and only strings that are properly quoted. You can use this slightly more complex regex...
echo $opt | sed -E "s|^(['\"])(.*)\1$|\2|g"
This uses backrefences to ensure the quote at the end is the same as at the start.
In Bash, you could use the following one-liner:
[[ "${var}" == \"*\" || "${var}" == \'*\' ]] && var="${var:1:-1}"
This will remove surrounding quotes (both single and double) from the string stored in var while keeping quote characters inside the string intact. Also, this won't do anything if there's only a single leading quote or only a single trailing quote or if there are mixed quote characters at start/end.
Wrapped in a function:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Strip surrounding quotes from string [$1: variable name]
function strip_quotes() {
local -n var="$1"
[[ "${var}" == \"*\" || "${var}" == \'*\' ]] && var="${var:1:-1}"
}
str="'hello world'"
echo "Before: ${str}"
strip_quotes str
echo "After: ${str}"
My version
strip_quotes() {
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
local value=${!1}
local len=${#value}
[[ ${value:0:1} == \" && ${value:$len-1:1} == \" ]] && declare -g $1="${value:1:$len-2}"
shift
done
}
The function accepts variable name(s) and strips quotes in place. It only strips a matching pair of leading and trailing quotes. It doesn't check if the trailing quote is escaped (preceded by \ which is not itself escaped).
In my experience, general-purpose string utility functions like this (I have a library of them) are most efficient when manipulating the strings directly, not using any pattern matching and especially not creating any sub-shells, or calling any external tools such as sed, awk or grep.
var1="\"test \\ \" end \""
var2=test
var3=\"test
var4=test\"
echo before:
for i in var{1,2,3,4}; do
echo $i="${!i}"
done
strip_quotes var{1,2,3,4}
echo
echo after:
for i in var{1,2,3,4}; do
echo $i="${!i}"
done
I use this regular expression, which avoids removing quotes from strings that are not properly quoted, here the different outputs are shown depending on the inputs, only one with begin-end quote was affected:
echo '"only first' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"only first<
echo 'only last"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"only last"<
echo '"both"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >both<
echo '"space after" ' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"space after" <
echo ' "space before"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: > "space before"<
STR='"0.0.0"' ## OR STR="\"0.0.0\""
echo "${STR//\"/}"
## Output: 0.0.0
There is another way to do it. Like:
echo ${opt:1:-1}
If you try to remove quotes because the Makefile keeps them, try this:
$(subst $\",,$(YOUR_VARIABLE))
Based on another answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10430975/10452175
I have a file, where I want to add a * char on specific line, and at a specific location in that line.
Is that possible?
Thank you
You can use a kind of external tool available to manipulate data such as sed or awk. You can use this tool directly from your command line or include it in your bash script.
Example:
$ a="This is a test program that will print
Hello World!
Test programm Finished"
$ sed -E '2s/(.{4})/&\*/' <<<"$a" #Or <file
#Output:
This is a test program that will print
Hell*o World!
Test programm Finished
In above test, we enter an asterisk after 4th char of line2.
If you want to operate on a file and make changes directly on the file then use sed -E -i '....'
Same result can also be achieved with gnu awk:
awk 'BEGIN{OFS=FS=""}NR==2{sub(/./,"&*",$4)}1' <<<"$a"
In pure bash you can achieve above output with something like this:
while read -r line;do
let ++c
[[ $c == 2 ]] && printf '%s*%s\n' "${line:0:4}" "${line:4}" || printf '%s\n' "${line}"
# alternative:
# [[ $c == 2 ]] && echo "${line:0:4}*${line:4}" || echo "${line}"
done <<<"$a"
#Alternative for file read:
# done <file >newfile
If your variable is just a single line, you don't need the loop. You can do it directly like:
printf '%s*%s\n' "${a:0:4}" "${a:4}"
# Or even
printf '%s\n' "${a:0:4}*${a:4}" #or echo "${a:0:4}*${a:4}"
I suggest to use sed. If you want to insert an asterisk at the 2nd line at the 5th column:
sed -r "2s/^(.{5})(.*)$/\1*\2/" myfile.txt
2s says you are going to perform a substitution on the 2nd line. ^(.{5})(.*)$ says you are taking 5 characters from the beginning of the line and all characters after it. \1*\2 says you are building the string from the first match (i.e. 5 beginning characters) then a * then the second match (i.e. characters until the end of the line).
If your line and column are in variables you can do something like that:
_line=5
_column=2
sed -r "${_line}s/^(.{${_column}})(.*)$/\1*\2/" myfile.txt
Below is the snippet of a shell script from a larger script. It removes the quotes from the string that is held by a variable. I am doing it using sed, but is it efficient? If not, then what is the efficient way?
#!/bin/sh
opt="\"html\\test\\\""
temp=`echo $opt | sed 's/.\(.*\)/\1/' | sed 's/\(.*\)./\1/'`
echo $temp
Use tr to delete ":
echo "$opt" | tr -d '"'
NOTE: This does not fully answer the question, removes all double quotes, not just leading and trailing. See other answers below.
There's a simpler and more efficient way, using the native shell prefix/suffix removal feature:
temp="${opt%\"}"
temp="${temp#\"}"
echo "$temp"
${opt%\"} will remove the suffix " (escaped with a backslash to prevent shell interpretation).
${temp#\"} will remove the prefix " (escaped with a backslash to prevent shell interpretation).
Another advantage is that it will remove surrounding quotes only if there are surrounding quotes.
BTW, your solution always removes the first and last character, whatever they may be (of course, I'm sure you know your data, but it's always better to be sure of what you're removing).
Using sed:
echo "$opt" | sed -e 's/^"//' -e 's/"$//'
(Improved version, as indicated by jfgagne, getting rid of echo)
sed -e 's/^"//' -e 's/"$//' <<<"$opt"
So it replaces a leading " with nothing, and a trailing " with nothing too. In the same invocation (there isn't any need to pipe and start another sed. Using -e you can have multiple text processing).
If you're using jq and trying to remove the quotes from the result, the other answers will work, but there's a better way. By using the -r option, you can output the result with no quotes.
$ echo '{"foo": "bar"}' | jq '.foo'
"bar"
$ echo '{"foo": "bar"}' | jq -r '.foo'
bar
There is a straightforward way using xargs:
> echo '"quoted"' | xargs
quoted
xargs uses echo as the default command if no command is provided and strips quotes from the input, see e.g. here. Note, however, that this will work only if the string does not contain additional quotes. In that case it will either fail (uneven number of quotes) or remove all of them.
If you came here for aws cli --query, try this. --output text
You can do it with only one call to sed:
$ echo "\"html\\test\\\"" | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
html\test\
The shortest way around - try:
echo $opt | sed "s/\"//g"
It actually removes all "s (double quotes) from opt (are there really going to be any more double quotes other than in the beginning and the end though? So it's actually the same thing, and much more brief ;-))
The easiest solution in Bash:
$ s='"abc"'
$ echo $s
"abc"
$ echo "${s:1:-1}"
abc
This is called substring expansion (see Gnu Bash Manual and search for ${parameter:offset:length}). In this example it takes the substring from s starting at position 1 and ending at the second last position. This is due to the fact that if length is a negative value it is interpreted as a backwards running offset from the end of parameter.
Update
A simple and elegant answer from Stripping single and double quotes in a string using bash / standard Linux commands only:
BAR=$(eval echo $BAR) strips quotes from BAR.
=============================================================
Based on hueybois's answer, I came up with this function after much trial and error:
function stripStartAndEndQuotes {
cmd="temp=\${$1%\\\"}"
eval echo $cmd
temp="${temp#\"}"
eval echo "$1=$temp"
}
If you don't want anything printed out, you can pipe the evals to /dev/null 2>&1.
Usage:
$ BAR="FOO BAR"
$ echo BAR
"FOO BAR"
$ stripStartAndEndQuotes "BAR"
$ echo BAR
FOO BAR
This is the most discrete way without using sed:
x='"fish"'
printf " quotes: %s\nno quotes: %s\n" "$x" "${x//\"/}"
Or
echo $x
echo ${x//\"/}
Output:
quotes: "fish"
no quotes: fish
I got this from a source.
Linux=`cat /etc/os-release | grep "ID" | head -1 | awk -F= '{ print $2 }'`
echo $Linux
Output:
"amzn"
Simplest ways to remove double quotes from variables are
Linux=`echo "$Linux" | tr -d '"'`
Linux=$(eval echo $Linux)
Linux=`echo ${Linux//\"/}`
Linux=`echo $Linux | xargs`
All provides the Output without double quotes:
echo $Linux
amzn
I know this is a very old question, but here is another sed variation, which may be useful to someone. Unlike some of the others, it only replaces double quotes at the start or end...
echo "$opt" | sed -r 's/^"|"$//g'
If you need to match single or double quotes, and only strings that are properly quoted. You can use this slightly more complex regex...
echo $opt | sed -E "s|^(['\"])(.*)\1$|\2|g"
This uses backrefences to ensure the quote at the end is the same as at the start.
In Bash, you could use the following one-liner:
[[ "${var}" == \"*\" || "${var}" == \'*\' ]] && var="${var:1:-1}"
This will remove surrounding quotes (both single and double) from the string stored in var while keeping quote characters inside the string intact. Also, this won't do anything if there's only a single leading quote or only a single trailing quote or if there are mixed quote characters at start/end.
Wrapped in a function:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Strip surrounding quotes from string [$1: variable name]
function strip_quotes() {
local -n var="$1"
[[ "${var}" == \"*\" || "${var}" == \'*\' ]] && var="${var:1:-1}"
}
str="'hello world'"
echo "Before: ${str}"
strip_quotes str
echo "After: ${str}"
My version
strip_quotes() {
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
local value=${!1}
local len=${#value}
[[ ${value:0:1} == \" && ${value:$len-1:1} == \" ]] && declare -g $1="${value:1:$len-2}"
shift
done
}
The function accepts variable name(s) and strips quotes in place. It only strips a matching pair of leading and trailing quotes. It doesn't check if the trailing quote is escaped (preceded by \ which is not itself escaped).
In my experience, general-purpose string utility functions like this (I have a library of them) are most efficient when manipulating the strings directly, not using any pattern matching and especially not creating any sub-shells, or calling any external tools such as sed, awk or grep.
var1="\"test \\ \" end \""
var2=test
var3=\"test
var4=test\"
echo before:
for i in var{1,2,3,4}; do
echo $i="${!i}"
done
strip_quotes var{1,2,3,4}
echo
echo after:
for i in var{1,2,3,4}; do
echo $i="${!i}"
done
I use this regular expression, which avoids removing quotes from strings that are not properly quoted, here the different outputs are shown depending on the inputs, only one with begin-end quote was affected:
echo '"only first' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"only first<
echo 'only last"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"only last"<
echo '"both"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >both<
echo '"space after" ' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: >"space after" <
echo ' "space before"' | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/'
Output: > "space before"<
STR='"0.0.0"' ## OR STR="\"0.0.0\""
echo "${STR//\"/}"
## Output: 0.0.0
There is another way to do it. Like:
echo ${opt:1:-1}
If you try to remove quotes because the Makefile keeps them, try this:
$(subst $\",,$(YOUR_VARIABLE))
Based on another answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10430975/10452175
I used many times [``] to capture output of command to a variable. but with following code i am not getting right output.
#!/bin/bash
export XLINE='($ZWP_SCRIP_NAME),$ZWP_LT_RSI_TRIGGER)R),$ZWP_RTIMER'
echo 'Original XLINE'
echo $XLINE
echo '------------------'
echo 'Extract all word with $ZWP'
#works fine
echo $XLINE | sed -e 's/\$/\n/g' | sed -e 's/.*\(ZWP[_A-Z]*\).*/\1/g' | grep ZWP
echo '------------------'
echo 'Assign all word with $ZWP to XVAR'
#XVAR doesn't get all the values
export XVAR=`echo $XLINE | sed -e 's/\$/\n/g' | sed -e 's/.*\(ZWP[_A-Z]*\).*/\1/g' | grep ZWP` #fails
echo "$XVAR"
and i get:
Original XLINE
($ZWP_SCRIP_NAME),$ZWP_LT_RSI_TRIGGER)R),$ZWP_RTIMER
------------------
Extract all word with $ZWP
ZWP_SCRIP_NAME
ZWP_LT_RSI_TRIGGER
ZWP_RTIMER
------------------
Assign all word with $ZWP to XVAR
ZWP_RTIMER
why XVAR doesn't get all the values?
however if i use $() to capture the out instead of ``, it works fine. but why `` is not working?
Having GNU grep you can use this command:
XVAR=$(grep -oP '\$\KZWP[A-Z_]+' <<< "$XLINE")
If you pass -P grep is using Perl compatible regular expressions. The key here is the \K escape sequence. Basically the regex matches $ZWP followed by one or more uppercase characters or underscores. The \K after the $ removes the $ itself from the match, while its presence is still required to match the whole pattern. Call it poor man's lookbehind if you want, I like it! :)
Btw, grep -o outputs every match on a single line instead of just printing the lines which match the pattern.
If you don't have GNU grep or you care about portability you can use awk, like this:
XVAR=$(awk -F'$' '{sub(/[^A-Z_].*/, "", $2); print $2}' RS=',' <<< "$XLINE")
First, the smallest change that makes your code "work":
echo "$XLINE" | tr '$' '\n' | sed -e 's/.*\(ZWP[_A-Z]*\).*/\1/g' | grep ZWP_
The use of tr replaces a sed expression that didn't actually do what you thought it did -- try looking at its output to see.
One sane alternative would be to rely on GNU grep's -o option. If you can't do that...
zwpvars=( ) # create a shell array
zwp_assignment_re='[$](ZWP_[[:alnum:]_]+)(.*)' # ...and a regex
content="$XLINE"
while [[ $content =~ $zwp_assignment_re ]]; do
zwpvars+=( "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}" ) # found a reference
content=${BASH_REMATCH[2]} # stuff the remaining content aside
done
printf 'Found variable: %s\n' "${zwpvars[#]}"
if I have file named some_file, with content as follows:
first line
second line
third line
and inside script:
VAR1="first line\nsecond line\nthird line"
VAR2="`cat some_file`"
I expect VAR1 and VAR2 to be the same, but it is obviously not the case according to the sed:
sed "s/^a/${VAR1}/" some_another_file # this is OK
sed "s/^a/${VAR2}/" some_another_file # this fail with syntactic error
I suppose that newline representation is somehow different, but i can't find any way how to make VAR2 equal to VAR1.
thanks in advance
This will read in the file and replace the line with its contents:
sed -e '/^a/{r some_file' -e 'd}' some_another_file
Change VAR1 to:
VAR1=$(echo -e "first line\nsecond line\nthird line")
Then test them:
$ [ "$VAR1" == "$VAR2" ] && echo equal
equal
Update:
To get sed to work, change VAR2 so that it has "\n"s instead of newline characters.
VAR2=$(sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\n/g' some_file)
sed "s/^a/${VAR2}/" file