search/replace in many files

allelopath · 08-02-2005, 09:05 PM

What is the best way to recursively search thru a directory structure and search and replace text in files?

For example, if I wanted to search thru all files with extension .txt and replace all occurences of the string "red" with "blue".

Matir · 08-02-2005, 09:21 PM

And write it back out to the same file?

Code:

#!/bin/bash
SEARCH=red
REPLACE=blue


for file in `find . -name '*.txt'`
    do sed 's/$SEARCH/$REPLACE' < $file > $file.new
    mv $file.new $file
done

Test it on a copy first.