1RPL(1)                    BSD General Commands Manual                   RPL(1)
2

NAME

4     rpl — replace strings in files
5

SYNOPSIS

7     rpl [-LhiwbqvsRepfdt] [-xSUFFIX] ⟨old_string⟩ ⟨new_string⟩
8         ⟨target_file ...⟩
9

DESCRIPTION

11     Basic usage is to specify two strings and one or more filenames or direc‐
12     tories on the command line.  The first string is the string to replace,
13     and the second string is the replacement string.
14
15     -h, --help
16             A short help text.
17
18     -L, --license
19             Show the license and exit.
20
21     -xSUFFIX
22             Search only files ending with SUFFIX, e.g.  “.txt”.  May be spec‐
23             ified multiple times.
24
25     -i, --ignore-case
26             Ignore the case of old_string.
27
28     -w, --whole-words
29             Make old_string match only on word boundaries.
30
31     -b, --backup
32             Move the original files to filename~ before replacing them.
33
34     -q, --quiet
35             Quiet mode.
36
37     -v, --verbose
38             Verbose mode.
39
40     -s, --dry-run
41             Simulation mode, no files are changed.
42
43     -R, --recursive
44             Recurse into subdirectories.
45
46     -e, --escape
47             Expand escape sequences in old_string and new_string.  Examples
48             of escape sequences are ‘\n’ (new-line), ‘\t’ (tab), ‘\x42’
49             (hexadecimal number 42), ‘\033’ (octal number 033).
50
51     -p, --prompt
52             Prompt for confirmation before replacing each file.
53
54     -f, --force
55             Ignore errors when trying to restore permissions and file owner‐
56             ship.
57
58     -d, --keep-times
59             Keep modification times when replacing files.
60
61     -t, --use-tmpdir
62             Use a temporary directory for storing temporary files, usually
63             the value of the environment variable TMPDIR.  The default is to
64             put temporary files in the same directory as the file being modi‐
65             fied.
66
67     -a, --all
68             Do not ignore files and directories starting with .
69

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

71     An effort has been made to make the program behave as much as the origi‐
72     nal rpl as necessary.  Where it has been possible to make improvements,
73     improvements have been made.  This implementation lacks many of the bugs
74     in the original.
75

EXAMPLES

77     Replace all occurences of “F” (on word boundaries) with “A” in all text
78     files under the grades/ directory:
79           $ rpl -Rwd -x'.txt' 'F' 'A' grades/
80

SEE ALSO

82     find(1), sed(1).
83

HISTORY

85     This program was written for Debian as a free replacement for the non-
86     free rpl program by Joe Laffey.
87

AUTHORS

89     Göran Weinholt <weinholt@debian.org>.
90
91Debian                           July 31, 2005                          Debian
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