BASH: recursive program to replace text in a tree of files

Question

I am completely new at Bash but I just can't seem to find a way to make it do what I want.

Imagine you have a tree directory with 2 files: /top.php and /test/bottom.php

How do I make my function look and replace say "hello" into "bonjour" in /top.php AND in /test/bottom.php?

So far the only way I have found to do this is by calling the same function twice with a different depth level:

find ./*.php -type f -exec sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {} \;
find ./*/*.php -type f -exec sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {} \;

Surely there's a recursive way to do this in one line?

possible duplicate of Awk/Sed: How to do a recursive find/replace of a string? — AncientSwordRage
– AncientSwordRage, Commented May 7, 2015 at 8:17

thiton · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-21 20:09:47Z

37

Use an actual pattern for find instead of shell wildcard expansion:

find . -name '*.php' -type f -exec sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {} \;

answered Nov 21, 2011 at 20:09

thiton

36.1k4 gold badges74 silver badges104 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

Erken Over a year ago

Yours worked perfect! I'd upvote it if I could but I don't have the required amount of reputation yet

thiton Over a year ago

@Erken: Thanks. You should have the reputation to accept the answer (the checkmark below the number of votes). Which is the correct response if it works, anyway :-).

Erken Over a year ago

Perfect, got it! Thanks a lot you guys, you've been amazingly fast!! oO

xizdaqrian Over a year ago

Thanks. This is helping get bsdgames built under cygwin.

Jitesh Sojitra Over a year ago

How can i see the log of this command to make sure everything went fine?

sehe · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-21 20:19:17Z

2

Close:

find -iname '*.php' -type f -exec sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {} \;

Or

find -iname '*.php' -type f -print0 |
     xargs -0 sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/'

edited Nov 21, 2011 at 20:19

answered Nov 21, 2011 at 20:10

sehe

400k49 gold badges475 silver badges671 bronze badges

2 Comments

Erken Over a year ago

the first solution you gave didn't work. I haven't tried the second one but the solution given by thiton was more straight forward

sehe Over a year ago

@Erken: that is because you had more files in the top directory than the question described. Learn to quote your wildcards if you don't want them expanded.

Stephen Gross · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-21 20:09:51Z

-2

Use xargs and grep:

find . -type f | grep php$ | xargs -n1 -i sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {}

Here's how it works:

Find all files in-and-below current directory:

find . -type f

Include just those files ending in php:

grep php$

Take each line and apply sed to it:

xargs -n1 -i sed -i 's/hello/bonjour/' {}

answered Nov 21, 2011 at 20:09

Stephen Gross

5,73412 gold badges44 silver badges59 bronze badges

6 Comments

Stephen Gross Over a year ago

First of all, don't put spaces in your filenames! :) Secondly, just quote-enclose the "{}" portion and you should be ok.

sehe Over a year ago

Nope. Grep/xargs will kill your kittens.

thiton Over a year ago

@StephenGross: No, actually. The problem is with xargs and its concept of a delimiter.

Stephen Gross Over a year ago

Ah, good point. Well, in that case, my first recommendation stands: Don't put spaces in your filenames.

sorpigal Over a year ago

@StephenGross: A more unworkable piece of advice I've never heard. How about just writing good shell code?

|

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

BASH: recursive program to replace text in a tree of files

3 Answers 3

5 Comments

2 Comments

6 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

5 Comments

2 Comments

6 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related