Windows – Find and replace text in multiple files

find and replacewindows 7

I’m hoping someone might lend their time in helping me create a batch file or similar for finding and replacing text in several files.
I have tried many “search and replace” utilities but have not found something that does what I need.

The requirements are as follows:
Find and replace the SAME text in multiple files with different text FOR EACH FILE.

Example:

File1.txt, file2.txt, file3.txt all have a text string “change me please”

for file1.txt replace text string “change me please” to “file1 changed” save as original filename (file1.txt)
for file2.txt replace text string “change me please” to “file2 changed” save as original filename (file2.txt)
for file3.txt replace text string “change me please” to “file3 changed” save as original filename (file3.txt)

Best Answer

Using PowerShell commands:

Get-Content c:\file1.txt | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "change me please", "file1 changed" } | Set-Content c:\changed1.txt

Get-Content c:\file2.txt | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "change me please", "file2 changed" } | Set-Content c:\changed2.txt

leaves me with the 2 files:

changed1.txt

changed2.txt

Could some kind person tell me how I would then rename these files and overwrite the originals:

changed1.txt to file1.txt

changed2.txt to file2.txt

Related Solutions

Find and replace multiple blank lines

Within notepad there is no way to use the Find and Replace and target blank lines. Consider Notepad++ and the regex search and replace.

You can use \r\n to find blank lines from text files made within Windows, \r for Mac and \n for Linux.

I believe a default install actually comes with TextFX to make your life even easier, it has an option to delete blank lines:

alt text

Windows – How to Powershell on Windows 7 diff two files

Edit: Apparently there is a built in alias so this works too:

diff $(Get-Content C:\file1.txt) $(Get-Content C:\file2.txt)

You can do this:

Compare-Object $(Get-Content c:\file1.txt) $(Get-Content c:\file2.txt)

This is some sample output:

InputObject                             SideIndicator
-----------                             -------------
This is a line in file 2                =>
This is a line in file 1                <=

You can also do -excludeDifferent to only show the lines that are the same or -includeEqual to include the lines that are the same.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Find and replace multiple blank lines

Windows – How to Powershell on Windows 7 diff two files

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