Do any OS X apps ease Search and Replace across multiple files?

Question

I'm looking for an OS X tool which allows me to search and replace a search string in multiple files. The requirements are the following:

• Search and Replace
• Search by regular expression
• Search across multiple files
• Search across nested directory structures
• Replace expression can use values from the search (Regular Expression)
• The tool has an easy to use user interface
• Preferably free

I know that some text editors like BBEdit have this functionality, but I would prefer a lightweight tool that doesn't require me to open the files for editing first.

If there aren't any tools to match these requirements, I would also consider a command line alternative. I know that perl and sed support something like this - a solution that I can define either as a Bash alias or function would be welcome in this case.

Answer 1

I typically use TextMate:

TextMate (1) is/was a buy product, but TextMate 2 is currently under active openSource development on gitHub and free to use.

Answer 2

Sublime Text is what I use, it's great!

Sublime Text:

• is free to evaluate (no time limit imposed)
• can search and replace
• can search by regular expression
• can search across multiple files
• can search across nested directory structures
• can use values from the search in replace expression
• has an easy to use user interface

Answer 3

You don't have to open the files with BBEdit. You just point it to a folder. It's a very powerful tool, one that I've often used with large numbers of HTML files.

Answer 4

In addition to the other solutions using a text editor, I have found FAR - Find and Replace, a multi-platform find and replace tool. It's not the prettiest one, but it looks like it does what I'm looking for.

http://findandreplace.sourceforge.net/

Answer 5

I often use Ruby scripts like this:

Dir["**/*.txt"].each { |f|
  IO.write(f, IO.read(f).gsub(/search/, "replace"))
}

Or you can use gets(nil) with -i:

ruby -i -e 'print gets(nil).gsub(/search/, "replace")' *.txt

If you install Bash 4 and enable globstar, you can use ** in shells as well:

sed -i '' 's/search/replace/g' **/*.txt

Answer 6

This is exactly sed was written and it matches all of your requirements, except the learning curve is a bit steep.

For a more gentle learning curve, try TextWrangler from BareBones. It uses the BBEdit text engine and, I believe, has the full search & replace functionality of its big brother

Answer 7

Take a look at my App Search and Replace. You can use it on multiple files or directories, safe your search/replace strings and you can use regular expressions.