On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Stroller <strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote: > > On 28 Feb 2010, at 19:06, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote: >> >> On Sunday 28 February 2010, Stroller wrote: >>> >>> ... >>> $ sed 's/Project Gutenberg/Wordsworth Classics/' foo > bar >>> $ mv bar foo >>> $ >> >> Have a look at sed's "-i" option. >> >>> Using `grep` I can search *recursively* through directories to find the >>> text I'm looking for. EG: `grep -R Gutenberg ~` >>> >>> I would like to find every instance of $foo in a directory hierarchy and >>> replace it with $bar. >>> >>> ... >> >> A starting point could be (after you make a backup of the whole tree) >> >> find /basedir -type f -exec sed -i 's/foo/bar/g' {} + > > Many thanks - that looks great! > > My only concern is that it is unreliable enough that you state the need to > backup first. ;)
Why are you concerned about a backup? It is always good to do backups before changing things. You never know when something might go wrong. ;)