Search and replace in a console

Question

I want to search and replace string located in a several files via bash console.

Here is the command I use to find a string in a file:

grep "string" * -r

so the above is for searching, now I need a command to replace the string.

Is that even possible?

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4996460/how-do-i-replace-the-word-hello-with-goodbye-in-every-file-in-this-directory/4996483 — Antti, Jan 17 '12 at 22:09

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 17 '12 at 22:06

4

It's cranky and difficult, but it's one way to do it.

Here's an example:

sed -i 's/ugly/beautiful/g' /home/bruno/old-friends/sue.txt

This replaces ugly with beautiful in sue.txt.

answered Jan 17 '12 at 22:06

Almo

Fails on OS X (FreeBSD) with `command a expects \ followed by text`. – Ain Tohvri Feb 26 '14 at 21:53
you have a typo, it sounds like. There's no command "a" in my example. – Almo Feb 26 '14 at 21:54
The thing is you need to provide backup extension on Mac/FreeBSD, e.g. `sed -i .bk 's/e/d/g' myfile.txt` – Ain Tohvri Feb 27 '14 at 07:55

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