webcs
asked on
Using sed to change a string in an entire directory
OK....lets say I have a directory on a UNIX server.
I want to change everyone of those files in the same
way. IE, search through every file in the directory for
red and change it to blue.
How do I do this. As I've seen sed can only be used on
one file at a time.
I tried:
sed 's/red/blue/g' *.*
and that actually changed every file to standard output, but
didn't actually change the files themselves.
So how do you simply issue a command like this which will
automatically goes through the entire directory and changes
all the files in it.
thanks
I want to change everyone of those files in the same
way. IE, search through every file in the directory for
red and change it to blue.
How do I do this. As I've seen sed can only be used on
one file at a time.
I tried:
sed 's/red/blue/g' *.*
and that actually changed every file to standard output, but
didn't actually change the files themselves.
So how do you simply issue a command like this which will
automatically goes through the entire directory and changes
all the files in it.
thanks
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
not generic enough, ozo's answer works..but thanks
ASKER
perfect...thanks
Well, to each his own way. More generic? I don't think so. The perl variant may be more suited to your needs, but every Unix box will have Bourne shell and not all will have perl installed.
ASKER
I tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/red/blue/g' *.*
using hte following code:
perl -i -pe 's/(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g' *.*
and the resultant came back as ((D))
Is there something else I have to include to change
(DOMAIN ONLY) to (D)
I assume in the first half its ignoring the ( and the ),
which I dont want it to do.
any suggestions?
perl -i -pe 's/red/blue/g' *.*
using hte following code:
perl -i -pe 's/(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g' *.*
and the resultant came back as ((D))
Is there something else I have to include to change
(DOMAIN ONLY) to (D)
I assume in the first half its ignoring the ( and the ),
which I dont want it to do.
any suggestions?
ASKER
I tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/red/blue/g' *.*
using hte following code:
perl -i -pe 's/(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g' *.*
and the resultant came back as ((D))
Is there something else I have to include to change
(DOMAIN ONLY) to (D)
I assume in the first half its ignoring the ( and the ),
which I dont want it to do.
any suggestions?
perl -i -pe 's/red/blue/g' *.*
using hte following code:
perl -i -pe 's/(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g' *.*
and the resultant came back as ((D))
Is there something else I have to include to change
(DOMAIN ONLY) to (D)
I assume in the first half its ignoring the ( and the ),
which I dont want it to do.
any suggestions?
#() are regular expression meta characters.
#to quote all meta characters, you can use
s/\Q(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g
#to quote all meta characters, you can use
s/\Q(DOMAIN ONLY)/(D)/g
ASKER
thank you!!!!!!!!
ASKER
ozo...
just tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/\Q(D)/D/g' *.*
and nothing changed...did you miss something?
just tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/\Q(D)/D/g' *.*
and nothing changed...did you miss something?
ASKER
ozo...
just tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/\Q(D)/D/g' *.*
and nothing changed...did you miss something?
just tried the following:
perl -i -pe 's/\Q(D)/D/g' *.*
and nothing changed...did you miss something?
It should work, unless you have an old version of perl.
what does
perl -v
show?
what does
perl -v
show?
ASKER
it shows version 4.0
ASKER
I do have access to perl5 though by typing perl5 instead...shoudl I try that?
ASKER
ok I tried the line using perl5 and it worked...guess perl 4 doesnt do it..weird...
thanks, ready to kill myself
thanks, ready to kill myself
Yes, perl5 is the currently supported version.
in perl4, you could quote individual characters with
perl4 -i -pe 's/\(D\)/D/g' *.*
and if you're not sure if it will do what you want, you might want to test it with
perl -i.bak -pe 's/\(D\)/D/g' test.file
in perl4, you could quote individual characters with
perl4 -i -pe 's/\(D\)/D/g' *.*
and if you're not sure if it will do what you want, you might want to test it with
perl -i.bak -pe 's/\(D\)/D/g' test.file
> for file in dir/*; do
cp $file $file.tmp
sed -e "s/red/blue/g" $file.tmp >$file
rm $file.tmp
done