How can I replace a particular term in multiple files in Linux?
For instance, I have a number of files in my directory:
file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
And I need to find a word "searchword" and replace it with "replaceword".
+4
A:
Nothing spectacular but thought this might be of help to others. Though you can write a shell script to do this easily, this one-liner is perhaps easier:
grep -lr -e '<searchthis>' * | xargs sed -i 's/<searchthis>/<replacewith>/g'
Legend
2010-02-15 03:27:28
You can also just do `sed 's<searchthis>/<replacewith>/g' -i *`
Alex JL
2010-02-15 03:35:54
Ah... even simpler.. :) Thanks!
Legend
2010-02-15 03:40:45
@Code Duck - this will avoid invoking `sed` where there is no search term present. More efficient - I guess - when the files are large.
Tom Duckering
2010-02-15 03:41:37
@ Tom Duckering : I thought of that too, but then realized the first example is greping through each file in the directory to find the term, too. Sed may or may not be as efficient as grep at doing that, but anyhow it seems simpler to just use one command.
Alex JL
2010-02-15 04:13:50
@Code Duck - yeah - the usual trade one makes in adding complexity to make something more efficient. :)
Tom Duckering
2010-02-15 04:25:53
It's unclear whether searching through the files with grep is more efficient than searching through the files with sed. Either way, every line of each file is being sifted through.
Alex JL
2010-02-15 04:58:36
@ Tom Duckering: Actually, the grep/xargs/sed one is less efficient: you are opening every file, searching it, then reopening matching files with sed. With the sed only style, you are simply opening every file. So, it's like O(n+x) vs. O(n).
Alex JL
2010-02-15 05:09:38
+6
A:
sed -i.bak 's/searchword/replaceword/g' file*.txt
# Or sed -i.bak '/searchword/s/searchword/replaceword/g' file*.txt
With bash 4.0, you can do recursive search for files
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s globstar
for file in **/file*.txt
do
sed -i.bak 's/searchword/replaceword/g' $file
# or sed -i.bak '/searchword/s/searchword/replaceword/g' $file
done
Or with GNU find
find /path -type f -iname "file*.txt" -exec sed -i.bak 's/searchword/replace/g' "{}" +;
ghostdog74
2010-02-15 03:31:48
The second option can be shortened to sed -i.bak '/searchword/s//replaceword/g'
William Pursell
2010-02-15 04:08:16
@ghostdog: You miss the point of my comment. With sed, you do not need to specify the searchword twice.
William Pursell
2010-02-16 22:18:58
+1
A:
Use an ed script
Although sed now has an in-place edit option, you can also use the ed or ex program for this purpose...
for i in "$@"; do ed "$i" << \eof; done
1,$s/searchword/replaceword/g
w
q
eof
DigitalRoss
2010-02-15 03:51:16