How to replace a string with another string in more files, from terminal?

Question

Presuming there is a folder with the name "my-folder" which contains 100 files. If we want to replace (not in the filename, but in actual files) in all 100 files the string "originalString" with "replacedString" what command should do the job?

Tried:
grep -rl matchstring ~/my-folder | xargs sed -i 's/originalString/replacedString/g'

find ~/my-folder -type f -exec sed -i 's/originalString/replacedString/g' {} \;

I've also read this on stackoverflow.

None of these work for me. I am spelling something wrong? Btw I am on linux.

both solutions seem fine to me. Isn't it working at all or to what extend? — fedorqui
– fedorqui, Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 12:49
grep -rl matchstring ~/my-folder | xargs sed -i 's/originalString/replacedString/g' gives me sed: no input files and the second command doesent gives me anything. Could it be because in the directory I provide, there are another directories in which the files are? — Cristian
– Cristian, Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 12:55

hek2mgl · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-17 13:01:00Z

5

I would use this:

find my_folder -type f -exec sed 's/old_string/new_string/g' {} +

Once you can confirm it is working, pass the -i option to sed to make it edit the original files in place.

This is (very) close to your second solution, however I'm using the + instead of \; as the ending delimiter of find's exec option. This works the like xargs - the command line is built by appending each selected file name. At the end, the total number of invocations of the command will be much less than the number of matched file.

edited Jul 17, 2015 at 13:01

answered Jul 17, 2015 at 12:54

hek2mgl

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5 Comments

Cristian Over a year ago

This gives me: find: Arguments to -type should contain only one letter

hek2mgl Over a year ago

Forgive me, I've forgotten the f. Edited that.

hek2mgl Over a year ago

@Christian I need to join a meeting now, being back in ~30min.

Cristian Over a year ago

thank you so much! It worked. find myFolder -type f -exec sed -i 's/oldString/newString/g' {} +

hek2mgl Over a year ago

@Cristian You are welcome! However, the find-based solution you've posted in your question should also work. Probably you simple had a typo somewhere.

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