The replace utility program changes strings in place in files or on the standard input. Invoke replace in one of the following ways:
shell> replace from to [from to] ... -- file_name [file_name] ...
shell> replace from to [from to] ... < file_name"from" represents a string to look for and "to" represents its
replacement. There can be one or more pairs of strings.
A from-string can contain these special characters:
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
\^ | Match start of line. |
\$ | Match end of line. |
\b | Match space-character, start of line or end of line. For an end \b the next replace starts looking at the end space-character. A \b alone in a string matches only a space-character |
Use the -- option to indicate where the string-replacement
list ends and the file names begin. Any file named on the command line is
modified in place, so you may want to make a copy of the original before
converting it. replace prints a message indicating which of the input
files it actually modifies.
If the -- option is not given, replace reads standard
input and writes to standard output.
replace uses a finite state machine to match longer strings first. It can be used to swap strings. For example, the following command swaps "a" and "b" in the given files, /file1 and file2:
shell> replace a b b a -- file1 file2 ...The replace program is used by msql2mysql.
replace supports the following options.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
-?, -I | Display a help message and exit. |
-#debug_options | Enable debugging. |
-s | Silent mode. Print less information about what the program does. |
-v | Verbose mode. Print more information about what the program does. |
-V | Display version information and exit. |