echo -e '\t| one \\\n\t| two \\\n' | sed -e '/| one /a \ | three \\' -e '/| one-/a \ | three-* \\' The above behaves differently on busybox and gnu seds. I've meant to fix it all weekend, but was too busy. Just thought I'd post it here so it wouldn't get lost... Rob -- Latency is more important than throughput. It's that simple. - Linus Torvalds