How can I make a shell script using Perl?

Question

I have a Perl script called replaceUp:

 #!/usr/bin/perl                                          

 search=$1
 replace=$2

 find . -type f -exec perl -p -i -e "s/$search/$replace/g" {} \;

The script does not get loaded. This suggests me that my script is wrong.

How can you make a shell script using Perl?

Answer 1

The first line should be #!/bin/sh, not #!/usr/local/bin/perl. You are mistaken that that is a Perl script; it is a shell script that calls Perl.

It's also not going to actually work because $search and $replace are not going to get interpolated inside single quotes. Try single quotes inside double quotes.

Or better yet, try my mass search/replace Perl script. I keep a pure-Perl script for this around because, dangerous as mass search/replace is, you don't need multiple levels of shell metacharacter interpretation taking it from dangerous to absolutely lethal.