I don't use one-liners routinely, but when the boss-man asked for a quicky to make the same change in 150 files in a directory, I dashed off:

   perl -pi -e 's/this/that/' *
[download]

...and looked like a hero.

Then he said, "Make it work for a whole directory branch." I was stumped. I can (and did) write a short script to do this. But I have a lingering suspicion that there is some command-line magic that can, in effect do:

   perl -r -pi -e 's/this/that/' *
[download]

Where the '-r' switch works as in other Linux commands to cause the requested operation to be performed on all directories including and under the current one.

Sadly, there is no '-r' switch for the Perl executable.

Does anyone have a quick command-line hack (rather than a script) to accomplish the requested task.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Perl is a mess and that's good because the
problem space is also a mess." - Larry Wall

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.