[Bash] Massively replace text in all files of a directory

Question

Hi everybody,
I wrote this small recursive function in order to massively replace some strings contained in all files of a directory (and all subdirectories). Any suggestions?
replaceText() {
# set the temporary location
local tFile="/tmp/out.tmp.$$"
# call variables
local script="$2"
local opts="${@:3}"
browse() {
for iFile in "$1"/*; do
if [ -d "$iFile" ];then
# enter subdirectory...
browse "$iFile"
elif [ -f $iFile -a -r $iFile ]; then
echo "$iFile"
sed $opts "s/$(echo $script)/g" "$iFile" > $tFile && mv $tFile "$iFile"
else
echo "Skip $iFile"
fi
done
browse $1
Syntax:
replaceText [path] [script] [sed options (optional)]
For example (it will replace "hello" with "hi" in all files):
replaceText /home/user/mydir hello/hi
Note: It is case-sensitive.
Bye,
grufo
Last edited by grufo (2012-11-10 15:05:43)

Answer 1

falconindy wrote:
Yes, find is recursive and extremely good at its job.
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/UsingFind
Well
falconindy wrote:Your lack of quoting is dangerous, as is your code injection in sed. I'm not sure why you're echoing a var inside a command substitution inside a sed expression, but it's going to be subject to word splitting, all forms of expansion, and may very well break the sed expression entirely, leading to bad things. A contrived example, but passing something like 'foo//;d;s/bar/' should effectively delete the contents of every file the function touches.
So, if you consider it dangerous, you can adopt the whole "sed syntax" and confirm before continue...:
replaceText() {
# set the temporary location
local tFile="/tmp/out.tmp.$$"
# call variables
local sedArgs="${@:2}"
browse() {
for iFile in "$1"/*; do
if [ -d "$iFile" ];then
# enter subdirectory...
browse "$iFile"
elif [ -f $iFile -a -r $iFile ]; then
echo "$iFile"
sed $sedArgs "$iFile" > $tFile && mv $tFile "$iFile"
else
echo "Skip $iFile"
fi
done
while true; do
read -p "Do you want to apply \"sed $sedArgs\" to all files contained in the directory $1? [y/n] " yn
case $yn in
[Yy]* ) browse $1; break;;
* ) exit;;
esac
done
Syntax:
replaceText [parent directory] [sed arguments]
Example:
replaceText /your/path -r 's/OldText/NewText/g'
or, if you want to work directly with the current directory...
replaceText() {
# set the temporary location
local tFile="/tmp/out.tmp.$$"
# call variables
local sedArgs="$@"
browse() {
for iFile in "$1"/*; do
if [ -d "$iFile" ];then
# enter subdirectory...
browse "$iFile"
elif [ -f $iFile -a -r $iFile ]; then
echo "$iFile"
sed $sedArgs "$iFile" > $tFile && mv $tFile "$iFile"
else
echo "Skip $iFile"
fi
done
while true; do
read -p "Do you want to apply \"sed $sedArgs\" to all files contained in the directory $PWD? [y/n] " yn
case $yn in
[Yy]* ) browse $PWD; break;;
* ) exit;;
esac
done
Syntax:
replaceText [sed arguments]
Example:
replaceText -r 's/OldText/NewText/g'
What about?
falconindy wrote:I'll also point out that declaring a function within a function doesn't provide any amount of scoping -- 'browse' will be declared in the user's namespace after running this function for the first time.
See:
function1() {
function2() {
echo "Ciao"
function2
function2 # error
function1 # works