How to replace text in text file using .SH file script?

Question

So I want to create a script that takes 3 arguments - path to file, exact word to replace and with what to replace it. How to create such thing?

Generally I want6 it to have api like sudo script.sh "C:/myTextDoc.xml" "_WORD_TO_REPLACE_" "WordTo Use"

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 19:23

4

You don't need a script, a simple sed would do (if you're running under cygwin or a POSIX-compliant OS):

sed -i '' 's/_WORD_TO_REPLACE_/WordTo Use/' "C:/myTextDoc.xml"

answered Mar 29 '11 at 19:23

yan

Jonathan · Answer 2 · 2011-03-30T13:20:19.483

2

Something like this?

#!/bin/bash
sed -e "s/$2/$3/g" <$1 >$1.$$ && cp $1.$$ $1 && rm $1.$$

Alternatively, you can use the single command

sed -i -e "s/$2/$3/g" $1

as Yan suggested. I generally use the first form myself. I have seen systems where -i is not supported (SunOS).

This will replace all instances of the second argument with the third, in the file passed as the first. For example, ./replace file oldword newword

edited Mar 30 '11 at 13:20

answered Mar 29 '11 at 19:21

Jonathan

sed has the ability to edit files in place without the need to make temp files by hand. – yan Mar 29 '11 at 19:23
Instead of 3 commands and a temp file `sed -i "s/$2/$3/g" $1` will work just fine. – anubhava Mar 29 '11 at 19:26
@yan Neat, I didn't know that :-) – Jonathan Mar 29 '11 at 19:26
@Johnathan: edit and save only by combining both sed options, like : sed -i -e "s/foo/bar/g" my_file – hornetbzz Mar 30 '11 at 12:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 13:28

0

Ruby(1.9+)

$ ruby -i.bak -ne 'print $_.gsub(/WORD_TO_REPLACE/,"New Word")' /path/to/file

answered Mar 30 '11 at 13:28

kurumi

3 Answers3