#!/bin/bash
pattern='<!-- %cmd: for F in $(find ../[09]* -maxdepth 1 -type d -printf "%P\n" ) | grep -v "^$"; do echo "<li><a href=\"$F\">$F</a></li>"; done -->'
awk -v repl="newtext" 'FNR==NR {
a = a $0; next
}
n = index($0, a) {
print substr($0, 1, n-1) repl substr($0, n+length(a))
}' <(printf "%s\n" "$pattern") <(echo "before $pattern after")
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