gabeanderson.com 6.0

Awesome little script; thanks for sharing.

By Indrid Cold on Apr 25, 2003

Thanks a lot for this. I’ve been looking for a way to do this for quite a while. I’m suprised its not a function of sed or a built in linux command.

Now if only you can make this recursive through subdirectories!

By Matt Toledo on Jun 10, 2003

The following script includes subdirectories and capsulates the functionality in a file.

first arg: File Pattern; e.g ‘*.php’
second arg: pattern to search for; e.g. “find string”
third arg: replace string; e.g. “replace string”

The script still fails on filenames, that contain spaces. Any ideas what’s wrong?

=============================================
Paste this into a file ‘renall’ and make it executable (chmod u+x renall):

#!/bin/sh

if [ $# -lt 3 ] ; then
echo -e “Wrong number of parameters.”
echo -e “Usage:”
echo -e ” renall ‘filepat’ findstring replacestring\n”
exit 1
fi

#echo $1 $2 $3
for i in `find . -name “$1″ -exec grep -l “$2″ {} \;`
do
mv “$i” “$i.sedsave”
sed “s/$2/$3/g” “$i.sedsave” > “$i”
echo $i
#rm “$i.sedsave”
done

By Tobias on Jul 17, 2003

Sorry, I’m new to Linux.

I just can’t seem to get it to work. I copy it to the directory, chmod it, and.. well, I guess my question is if I’m running it properly. Should there be any output?

By sean on Jul 18, 2003

Ah, nevermind. I got it to work. Thanks.

By sean on Jul 18, 2003

Thank you. I had previously found a solution that uses a similar syntax in Perl (in the Linux Cookbook), but it fails to escape characters properly. Your script works perfectly.

By Sleeper on Jul 29, 2003

Thanks for sharing this … was very useful.

By Harish Puranik on Sep 3, 2003

There is a nice little utility called rpl for this task. http://software.freshmeat.net/projects/rpl/

By Gergo on Oct 26, 2003

That rpl utility was very useful…it did exactly what I needed. Thanks!

By Michael Sewell on Nov 11, 2003

Useful little script, thanks

By Mario on Nov 24, 2003

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Just what I needed.

By Aleda Freeman on Dec 3, 2003

This is great! Thanks for the tip!

By Grant on Jan 16, 2004

Nice little script, thanks.

By Nick Gushlow on Feb 11, 2004

Wonderful! Thanks!

By Mandy on Apr 21, 2004

Just what I was looking for! THX!

By Sway on Apr 21, 2004

Wow! How easy. Thanks!!

By Megan on May 4, 2004

The following works for me. The command on the web page you reference has an error (see my comment there). It should be:

find ./ -type f -exec sed ’s/string1/string2/’ {} \;

This command visits every file in . and it’s subdirectories and makes the substitution.

By scott on May 22, 2004

oops, forgot the -i option to make sed edit the file in-place:
find ./ -type f -exec sed -i ’s/string1/string2/’ {} \;

By scott on May 22, 2004

Thanks a bunch! This is exactly what I needed Will save me tons of repetitive, mindless work heh

By KristyX on Nov 4, 2004

Be sure you replace any backticks (the character next to the number 1 on a keyboard) with single quotes. Certain Wordpress themes like to replace these.

By Johntron on Mar 27, 2008

re that script:

if [ $# -lt 3 ] ; then
echo -e “Wrong number of parameters.”
echo -e “Usage:”
echo -e ” renall ‘filepat’ findstring replacestring\n”
exit 1
fi

#echo $1 $2 $3
for i in `find . -name “$1? -exec grep -l “$2? {} \;`
do
mv “$i” “$i.sedsave”
sed “s/$2/$3/g” “$i.sedsave” > “$i”
echo $i
#rm “$i.sedsave”
done

just tried it but when i use it the filepat arg is expanded by the shell before being passed to the script.

eg. mren *.xml find replace

will expand the args so $1 = a.xml, $2=b.xml … $27=find, $28=replace

quoting the *.xml didn’t help so i had to revise the script to take find and replace args first then iterate through the remaining args.

or was there an easier way to sort that wildcard file pattern expansion issue?

By Mark on Apr 14, 2008

Thanks.

By JC on May 17, 2008

What would be the best way to search and replace all the code between tags?

Search:

>html/htmlhtml/html<

This would also need to be done recursively.

By cg on Jun 19, 2008

I have a query
find $1/ | xargs grep -l $2 > tempf

What is this doing

By devarani.r on Jul 10, 2008