Using sed to find and delete across multiple files recursively

Question

How can I do a string match against, for example:

<meta name="keywords" content="

Then delete that whole line every time a match is found?

I'm looking to do this for all files in the current directory and below.

I'm also new to sed.

I'm using it to find that line across HTML files and remove it, so I guess yes. Is that bad? — Barney, Apr 02 '13 at 10:38

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 10:36

7

Try this command:

find . -type f -exec sed -i '/foobar/d' {} \;

Change foobar to what you search for.

answered Apr 02 '13 at 10:36

kev

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 02 '13 at 10:38

In answer to the question: "How do I do x to all files recursively?", the answer is to use find. To use sed to delete a line, you can either use the non-portable -i, or simply write a script to redirect the stream. For example:

find . -exec sh -c 'f=/tmp/t.$$; 
    sed "/<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"/d" $0 > $f; mv $f $0' {} \;

Using sed to find and delete across multiple files recursively

2 Answers2