How can I insert a variable containing a backslash in sed?

Question

Please see these simple commands:

$ echo $tmp
UY\\U[_
$ echo \"a\" | sed \"s|a|${tmp}|g\"
UY[_

The \\U is eaten. Other backslashes

Answer 1

You could reparse $tmp itself through sed

echo "a" | sed "s|a|$(echo ${tmp} | sed 's|\\|\\\\|g')|g"