Sed
April 30, 2008
I feel so lame that I never understood how to use sed properly before. Usually if I wanted to replace one string in a bunch of files I'd use a python script for the task or some other quick. custom solution. However, sed wins with
sed -i.bak -s -e s/old/new/g *.txt
I've been using Linux for 10 years and I just figured that out?! What is wrong with me?
Jordan: 2008-04-30 15:51:21
Perl has a similar set of options to do exactly the same thing in case sed isn't handy, or the version available doesn't support it.
That said, I'm with you -- I wrote a /lot/ of scripts that created /tmp/$0.$$ tmp files each time I wanted to do the equivalent of an in-place replace. Only within the last year or two did I find the perl/sed "-i" option.
Dave Y.: 2008-05-21 15:31:06
I hate command line tools (for whatever reason) so I take care of this via regular expeessions and third-party applications.