add space 5 times at the beginning of each line in a text file

With GNU sed:

sed -i -e 's/^/     /' <file>

will replace the start of each line with 5 spaces. The -i modifies the file in place, -e gives some code for sed to execute. s tells sed to do a subsitution, ^ matches the start of the line, then the part between the second two / characters is what will replace the part matched in the beginning, i.e., the start of the line in this example.

You can use sed

sed 's_^_     _' tmpin > tmpout

Or awk

awk '{print "     " $0}' tmpin > tmpout

Or paste (Thanks cuonglm)

:| paste -d' ' - - - - - file

Watch out. These can be addictive. You can solve many simple problems, but the time will come where you need to upgrade to a full scripting language.

Edit: Sed script simplified based on Eric Renouf's answer.

You can use many standard tools, example with paste:

:| paste -d' ' - - - - - file

or shorter with awk:

awk '{$1="     "$1}1' file

or more portable with perl:

perl -pe '$_=" "x5 .$_' file