Global Find and Replace with find and sed

**weeneedhelp** · 05-06-2010

Hey, I have a server filled with HTML files. I need to change the navigation bar to add an additional category. This is an example of the code that I would like to change

<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li><a href="page2.html">Two</a></li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>

Now, I would like to replace the link to page2 with two pictures instead. So it would look like:

<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li>
<img src="pic1.jpg"><br />
<img src="pic2.jpg">
</li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>

I have made a shell script that does the job (below), but I still have some questions.

#!/bin/bash
find -name '*.html' -print -exec sed -i.bak 's:<a href="page2\.html">Two</a>:<li><img src="pic1.jpg"><br /><img src="pic2.jpg"></li>:g' {} \;

If you execute the shell script, the resulting code will do its job, but its very hard to read:

<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li><img src="pic1.jpg"><br /><img src="pic2.jpg"></li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>

Is there a way that I can add tabs and line breaks to the output for sed so that it would be easier to read? Also, referring back to the original html file, how would you replcae page two and three with the two images in one command? so that it would look like (I can't figure out how to include spaces and tabs in regex. [/s]*? does not work):

Thanks for the help. Cheers.

**Franklin52** · 05-08-2010

Adjust the sed command with something like this, note that the command must be on 4 separate lines:

Code:

sed 's:<a href="page2\.html">Two</a>:\
<img src="pic1.jpg"><br />\
<img src="pic2.jpg">\
:g' file

This is the output with your sample file:

Code:

$ cat file
<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li><a href="page2.html">Two</a></li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>
$ sed 's:<a href="page2\.html">Two</a>:\
<img src="pic1.jpg"><br />\
<img src="pic2.jpg">\
:g' file
<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li>
<img src="pic1.jpg"><br />
<img src="pic2.jpg">
</li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>$

**drl** · 05-08-2010

Hi.

If I were interested in readability, I would use HTML tidy:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# @(#) s3	Demonstrate html tidy.
# See: http://tidy.sourceforge.net

FILE=${1-t1.html}
echo
tidy --version

echo
echo " Contents of file $FILE:"
cat $FILE

echo
tidy -q -i --show-body-only yes $FILE

exit 0

producing:

Code:

% ./s3

HTML Tidy for Linux released on 6 November 2007

 Contents of file t1.html:
<ul>
<li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>
<li><img src="pic1.jpg"><br /><img src="pic2.jpg"></li>
<li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul> 

line 1 column 1 - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 1 column 1 - Warning: inserting implicit <body>
line 1 column 1 - Warning: inserting missing 'title' element
line 3 column 5 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 3 column 31 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
<ul>
  <li><a href="page1.html">One</a></li>

  <li><img src="pic1.jpg"><br>
  <img src="pic2.jpg"></li>

  <li><a href="page3.html">Three</a></li>

  <li><a href="page4.html">Four</a></li>
</ul>

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

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