Shell script to recursively browse a directory and replace a string

Question

I need to recursively search directories and replace a string (say http://development:port/URI) with another (say http://production:port/URI) in all the files where ever it's found. Can anyone help?

It would be much better if that script can print out the files that it modified and takes the search/replace patterns as input parameters.

Regards.

Answer 1

Try this:

find . -type f | xargs grep -l development | xargs perl -i.bak -p -e 's(http://development)(http://production)g'

Another approach with slightly more feedback:

find . -type f | while read file
do
    grep development $file && echo "modifying $file" && perl -i.bak -p -e 's(http://development)(http://prodution)g' $file
done

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

find . -type f | xargs sed -i s/pattern/replacement/g

Answer 3

It sounds like you would benefit from a layer of indirection. (But then, who wouldn't?)

I'm thinking that you could have the special string in just one location. Either reference the configuration settings at runtime, or generate these files with the correct string at build time.

Answer 4

Don't try the above within a working svn/cvs directory, since it will also patch the .svn/.cvs, which is definitely not what you want. To avoid .svn modifications, for example, use find . -type f | fgrep -v .svn | xargs sed -i 's/pattern/replacement/g'

Answer 5

Use zsh so with advanced globing you can use only one command. E.g.:

sed -i 's:pattern:target:g' ./**

HTH