Yes there is a tool doing exactely that you are looking for. This is Git
. Why do you want to manage the backup of your files in case of mistakes when specialized tools can do that job for you?
You split your request in 3 subquestions:
- How quickly search into a subset of my files?
- How to apply a substitution temporarly, then go back to the original state?
- How to substitute into your subset of files?
We first need to do some jobs in your workspace. You need to init a Git repository then add all your files into this repository:
$ cd my_project
$ git init
$ git add **/*.h **/*.c **/*.inc
$ git commit -m "My initial state"
Now, you can quickly get the list of your files with:
$ git ls-files
To do a replacement, you can either use sed
, perl
or awk
. Here the example using sed
:
$ git ls-files | xargs sed -i -e 's/search/replace/'
If you are not happy with this change, you can roll-back anytime with:
$ git checkout HEAD
This allows you to test your change and step-back anytime you want to.
Now, we did not simplified the commands yet. So I suggest to add an alias to your Git configuration file, usually located here ~/.gitconfig
. Add this:
[alias]
sed = ! git grep -z --full-name -l '.' | xargs -0 sed -i -e
So now you can just type:
$ git sed s/a/b/
It's magic...