Let’s say you moved your server to a new network and now it has a different IP address. You know your users have a habit of hard-coding the server’s IP into their scripts. So you want to scan a bunch of directories and replace the old IP with the new one in all text files. The script below will do just that. It allows you to specify search path, filename pattern, search pattern, and replacement pattern. The script will also create backups of all files it modifies.

Download: find_replace.sh ; or find_replace.ksh

#!/bin/sh

#---------------------------------------------
# FUNCTIONS
#---------------------------------------------

enter_dir_func() {
	SDIR=
	CDIR=`pwd`
	echo ""
	echo -n "Enter directory to search [$CDIR]: "
	read SDIR
	if [ ! -n "$SDIR" ]
	then
		SDIR=$CDIR
	else
		if [ ! -d $SDIR ]
		then
			echo "Directory $SDIR does not exist!"
			echo 1
		fi
	fi
}

#---------------------------------------------

enter_find_string_func() {
	FINDSTR=
	echo -n "Enter search string: "
	read FINDSTR
	if [ ! -n "$FINDSTR" ]
	then
		echo "Search string cannot be null!"
		exit 1
	fi
}

#---------------------------------------------

enter_replace_string_func() {
	REPLSTR=
	echo -n "Enter replace string: "
	read REPLSTR
}

#---------------------------------------------

enter_filename_string_func() {
	FILESTR=
	echo -n "Enter filename string: "
	read FILESTR
}

#---------------------------------------------

search_replace_func() {
	echo "Performing find-and-replace..."
	DATE=`date +'%Y%m%d%H%M%S'`
	find $SDIR -type f -name "*${FILESTR}*" | while read FILENAME
	do
		if [ `file "$FILENAME" | awk '{print $NF}'` == "text" ]
		then
			if [ `grep -c "$FINDSTR" "$FILENAME"` -gt 0 ]
			then
				echo "-----------------------------------------------"
				echo "Replacing in $FILENAME"
				cp -p "$FILENAME" "${FILENAME}_${DATE}_BACKUP"
				gzip "${FILENAME}_${DATE}_BACKUP"
				sed "s+${FINDSTR}+${REPLSTR}+g" "$FILENAME" > "${FILENAME}_${DATE}"
				mv -f "${FILENAME}_${DATE}" "$FILENAME"
				echo "Backup file saved as ${FILENAME}_${DATE}.gz"
			fi
		fi
	done
}

#---------------------------------------------

confirm_func() {
	clear
	RESP=
	echo "Will search $SDIR for filenames mathing '*${FILESTR}*' pattern."
	echo "And will replace all occurences of '${FINDSTR}' with '${REPLSTR}'."
	echo -n "Do you wish to continue? (y/n): "
	read RESP
	case $RESP in
		[yY] | [yY][eE][sS] )	search_replace_func ;;
		* )			exit 0
	esac
}

#---------------------------------------------
# RUNTIME
#---------------------------------------------

enter_dir_func
enter_filename_string_func
enter_find_string_func
enter_replace_string_func
confirm_func