replacing a string in all file in perl in windows

Question

I want to replace a string with another string in all the files in windows. All files with same extension. I tried with following perl one liner command but it seems "*" is not working for windows.

perl.exe -pi.bak -e "s/Hello/ABCD/ge" C:\Users\Jamimb\Desktop\Test\*.tmp

So please help.

I suspect the equivalent works in Linux because the command interpreter shell expands any filename with a * to a list of the actual filenames, before the program is executed. It may not work in Windows because this wildcard expansion of the * does not occur. — Paul
– Paul, Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 10:48
The perl might behave better if run from cygwin or some other shell instead of the usual dos command line. cygwin.com — Paul
– Paul, Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 10:53
Before trying that, check and see if your perl will modify individual files. If it won't modify individual files that you name, there's no point fixing the *. — Paul
– Paul, Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 10:56
@Paul: "Behave like Linux" is not a synonym for "Behave better". There are many good things about Linux, but having any parameter that looks like a file glob expanded for you before you can look at it isn't one of them. — Borodin
– Borodin, Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 11:09

Borodin · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-15 11:03:41Z

2

You can expand the command line parameter explicitly from within Perl using glob.

Also, the /e ("eval") modifier on the substitution is wrong in this instance. If strict were in place it would cause a Bareword not allowed error, but without it it is simply a no-op as ABCD evaluates as 'ABCD'.

Try this

perl -i.bak -pe "BEGIN{@ARGV = map glob, @ARGV} s/Hello/ABCD/g" C:\Users\Jamimb\Desktop\Test\*.tmp

edited Jul 15, 2013 at 11:03

answered Jul 15, 2013 at 10:58

Borodin

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2 Comments

user2470865 Over a year ago

Thank you very much..The above applies to the files which are in same directory. Is there any way to replace the string in files of sub directory?

Borodin Over a year ago

I'm not clear what you mean. It will use whatever directory is specified in the command-line parameter. It will also expand several wildcarded expressions if you pass more than one parameter, like perl ... path1/*.tmp path1/subdir/*.tmp

Casimir et Hippolyte · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-15 11:03:13Z

0

You can try this (perhaps):

for %f in (C:\Users\Jamimb\Desktop\Test\*.tmp) do perl.exe -pi.bak -e "s/Hello/ABCD/g" %f

edited Jul 15, 2013 at 11:03

answered Jul 15, 2013 at 10:56

Casimir et Hippolyte

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