replace-x is a command line utility for performing in place search-and-replace on files. It's similar to sed but there are a few differences:
- Modifies files when matches are found
- Recursive search on directories with -r
- Uses JavaScript syntax for regular expressions and replacement strings.
- Uses XRegExp to provide augmented (and extensible) JavaScript regular expressions.
npm install replace-x -g
You can now use replace-x and search-x from the command line.
Replace all occurrences of "foo" with "bar" in files in the current directory:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' *
Replace in all files in a recursive search of the current directory:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' . -r
Replace-x only in test/file1.js and test/file2.js:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' test/file1.js test/file2.js
Replace-x all word pairs with "_" in middle with a "-":
replace-x '(\w+)_(\w+)' '$1-$2' *
Replace only in files with names matching *.js:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' . -r --include="*.js"
Don't replace in files with names matching _.min.js and _.py:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' . -r --exclude="*.min.js,*.py"
Preview the replacements without modifying any files:
replace-x 'foo' 'bar' . -r --preview
See all the options:
replace-x -h
There's also a search-x command. It's like grep, but with replace-x's syntax.
search-x "setTimeout" . -r
You can use replace from your JS program:
import replace from 'replace-x';
replace({
regex: 'foo',
replacement: 'bar',
paths: ['.'],
recursive: true,
silent: true,
});By default, replace-x and search-x will exclude files (binaries, images, etc) that match patterns in the "defaultignore" located in this directory.
If replace-x is taking too long on a large directory, try turning on the quiet flag with -q, only including the necessary file types with --include or limiting the lines shown in a preview with -n.
By default, replace-x works on files with lines of 400 characters or less. If you need to work on long lines, gnu sed supports unlimited line length.
By default, replace-x does not traverse symbolic links for files in directories.
