How can I do a search and replace over multiple files in different directories??? Example:

find . -name "*.*" -exec (find replace program???) {} "string1" "string2" \;

Something like that....

Thanks in advance.

I haven't tried this using multiple directories but works great on what I've used it for

perl -i.DontBlameStW -pe "s/current_string/string_to_replace_with/g" files

I think to use something with find, you will probably need a sed script. Maybe try the code below out and let me know if it works.

find . -type f -exec perl -i.DontBlameStW -pe "s/current_string/string_to_replace_with/g" {} \;

The problem that you'll have using find is that it will try to feed the directories to the programme doing the substitution, as well as the files, causing it to bomb. (I just wrote a little shell script to test this and that's what happened.)

I will consider this further and report back if I find a solution - it's a "real world" problem that must have a simple answer!

Got it!

I set up a shell script called 'mysubs':

cp $1 $1.old;
cat $1 | sed s/string_1/string_2/g > $1;

The cp is to make a safety copy before we overwrite the file...

Then:

find -type f -exec mysubs {} \;

The -f flag makes sure that we only handle regular files.

Note - if mysubs is in the directory we're searching, the string_1 in the script will also be substituted!

Sweet dood. Thanks!... I just don't understand the one argument to sed, could you explain???

s/string_1/string_2/g

??//???
Thanks again!

Btw, couldn't I do the following and have the same result (without backup that is)?

find . -f -exec cat {} | sed s/string_1/string2/g > {} \;

????

Quick refresher on sed:

s/string_1/string_2/g

* the first s is substitue (someone correct me if I'm wrong!)
* between the first and second slashes is the string you want changed
* between the second and third slashes is what you want the string changed to
* the g means do all occurences, not just the first one (g=global)

Note - if you want to have / or other reserved characters in your string(s), you will need to escape it with a backslash \.

Not sure on your last example - do what I did with mine and try it!

I just set up a temporary directory with a file in it containing the the string I wanted to change and a subdirectory with a further file also containing that string. Then I tweaked and ran the code until it worked, making many references to the find manpage in the process...

Conclusion:
1) experiment - just not on live data ;-)
2) manpages Are Your Friends.

Thanks again!

I found that it truncates the new files to 8192 bytes.

To correct this cat the backup file instead of the original, so line 2 becomes:
Alex

I think that the trucation issue is a case of "your mileage may vary" (it's a buffering thing, I think), but Alex's solution is actually better practice than my original suggestion.

As a rule, it's probably best NOT to take the contents of a file, process it and then put it back in - all in one step. If your process doesn't involve taking a copy, just use a temporary file and delete it afterwards.

Cheers

Matthew