glob-replace

glob-replace

A Python command line tool for global replacements of strings in text-formatted files in a single directory or directory tree.

Sections

• Examples
• Usage
• Changelog

Examples

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The glob-replace utility script can come in handy for replacing certain words or phrases in a collection of files. For example, if you are interested in bumping a "Copyright 2013-2022" to "Copyright 2013-2023" on your personal website or code repository.

I recommend doing this in 3 steps:

Step 1: Create a backup

Make a copy of the target folder (for the just-in-case scenario).

rsync -avP personal-website ~/Desktop/personal-website-backup

Step 2: Dry run

Run the replacement command using the --print flag, which just prints the files it would change.

python glob-replace.py personal-website --walk --search "2013-2022" --replace "2013-2023" --print 

Step 3: Apply the changes

Run the replacement command without the --print flag to make the actual changes.

python glob-replace.py personal-website --walk --search "2013-2022" --replace "2013-2023"

Usage

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An overview of all command line arguments.

./glob-replace.py -h
usage: glob-replace.py [-h] [-s SEARCH] [-r REPLACE] [-w] [-e EXTENSIONS] [-p]
                       [-v]
                       start_dir

A command line tool for global replacements of strings in files.

positional arguments:
  start_dir

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s SEARCH, --search SEARCH
                        String to be replaced.
  -r REPLACE, --replace REPLACE
                        String to replace the search query with.
  -f REPLACE_FROM_FILE, --replace_from_file REPLACE_FROM_FILE
                      Link to a text file that contains the text to replace the query with
  -w, --walk            Applies the global replacement recursively to sub-directorires.
  -e EXTENSIONS, --extensions EXTENSIONS
                        Only process files with particular extensions. Comma separated, e.g., ".txt,.py"
  -b, --skip_binary     Skips binary files if enabled (may result in false 
                        positives and negatives).
  -p, --print           Prints what it would rename.
  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit

Changelog

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v1.3

• Adds an option to read the string that is used for replacement from an external text file.

v1.2

• Adds an optional -b (--skip_binary) flag to skip binary files.

v1.1

• Adds an optional -p (--print) flag to print out the number of replacements that glob-replace.py would make instead of actually replacing those strings.