Replace a string in all files - Unix

Question

I am trying to replace a string ::: with :: for all lines in a batch of txtfiles (it can be considered as a word since there's always a space in front and behind it.

I can do it with python like below, but is there a less 'over-kill' / convoluted way of doing this through the unix terminal? (Many pipes allowed)

indir = "./td/"
outdir =  './od/'
for infile in glob.glob(os.path.join(indir,"*")):
  _,FILENAME = os.path.split()
  for l in codecs.open(infile,'r','utf8').readlines():
    l = l.replace(":::","::").strip()
    outfile = codecs.open(os.path.join(outdir,FILENAME),'a+','utf8')
    print>>outfile, l

Then i move all files from od to td mv ./od/* ./td/*

Beta · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 18:20:04Z

22

find . -name "./td/*.c" -exec sed -i "s/:::/::/g" '{}' \;

No need for od/ at all.

EDIT:

A slightly simpler variation:

ls td/*.c | xargs sed -i '' "s/:::/::/g"

edited Mar 5, 2013 at 18:20

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 18:06

Beta

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4 Comments

Idelic Over a year ago

Simpler and much more efficient as well. You can make the find version just as efficient if you use + instead of \; at the end.

Sorin Over a year ago

-1 for using ls to handle file names. I would add another one for missing the obvious "simpler" solution sed -i ... td/*.c (with a globstar added if needed). And another one for using directory names in find's -name option (see: linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl1_find.htm)... How did this get 4 votes ?

Beta Over a year ago

@Sorin: I admit I don't account for special characters in source file names (figuring that those who use them deserve what they get), but apart from that I don't see the problem. Kudos for your td/*.c suggestion though, I didn't know that would work; I'd've added it to my answer (with attribution) if it had been suggested with more courtesy.

Sorin Over a year ago

I don't know if I need to laugh or to cry.` sorin@sorin:~/tmp$ find -name "./tc/*.c" find: warning: Unix filenames usually don't contain slashes (though pathnames do). That means that '-name

./tc/*.c'' will probably evaluate to false all the time on this system.  You might find the '-wholename' test more useful, or perhaps '-samefile'.  Alternatively, if you are using GNU grep, you could use 'find ... -print0 | grep -FzZ

./tc/*.c''.`

chepner · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 18:04:23Z

3

A simple loop to process each file with sed should suffice.

for inp in ./td/*; do
    fname=${inp##*/}
    sed 's/:::/::/g' "$inp" > ./od/"$fname"
done

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 18:04

chepner

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