sed updated/touched also files that i didnt search replace in them

tomerbd · 10-15-2009, 11:24 AM

Hi
I performed:

Code:

find . -name '*.java' -type f -exec sed -i 's/searchforthis/replaceiwththis' {} \;

and also files that did not have the searchforthis where like touched so the svn wanted me to check them in which resulted in svn asking me to commit all my .java files... is there a way to let the sed touch only files that had the orig pattern searchforthis? or maybe i did something wrong?

pixellany · 10-15-2009, 11:28 AM

I would not say you did anything **wrong**, but it was not something I would recommend.

First, don't use sed -i without also specifying a backup AND also being totally sure that you have the right SED syntax.

Second, be sure you know what files that find is going to find---e.g. keep in mind that it is going to go into subdirectories by default.

chrism01 · 10-15-2009, 06:57 PM

The point is that sed has to read the files in order to find out if the search string is in there or not. You need to get svn to check mtime, not atime, if that's possible.