GNet Solutions » GNU/Linux Administration

This is a guide for using the sed utility to replace a string in multiple files.

• Switch to the working folder to run the command in:
  

  cd /usr/local/www/
  

• Then use sed to replace all instances of foo with bar in all files in the working directory:
  

  sed -i 's/foo/bar/g' *
  

• Alternatively, if there are folders in the working directory you may want to recirsively find all files and apply the replacement to them. This can be accomplished by running:
  

  find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/foo/bar/g' {} ;
  

Resources¶

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11392478/how-to-replace-a-string-in-multiple-files-in-linux-command-line
• https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/linux/find-sed-string-replace/