linux - How do I replace : characters with newline?

Question

I looked at a very similar question but was unable to resolve the issue Replace comma with newline in sed

I am trying to convert : characters in a string. This is what I tried:

echo -e 'this:is:a:test' | sed "s/:/'
'/g"

but this replaces : with n. I tried tr too but had the same result. I believe the -e is not seen after being piped so new line is not recognized.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

echo 'this:is:a:test' | tr : \n

Any POSIX-compliant tr will support the escape sequence. You need to take care to quote or escape the escape sequence, however (double backslash above).

The -e argument to echo has no effect on your argument to echo.