sed In-Place Editing In-place editing without specifying a backup file overrides read-only permissions
Example
sed -i -e cmd file will modify file even if its permissions are set to read-only.
This command behaves similarly to
sed -e cmd file > tmp; mv -f tmp file
rather than
sed -e cmd file > tmp; cat tmp > file; rm tmp
The following example uses gnu sed:
$ echo 'Extremely important data' > input
$ chmod 400 input # Protect that data by removing write access
$ echo 'data destroyed' > input
-bash: input: Permission denied
$ cat input
Extremely important data (#phew! Data is intact)
$ sed -i s/important/destroyed/ input
$ cat input
Extremely destroyed data (#see, data changed)
This can be mitigated by creating a backup by specifying a SUFFIX with the i option:
$ sed -i.bak s/important/destroyed/ input
$ cat input
Extremely destroyed data
$ cat input.bak
Extremely important data
