How can you find and replace text in a file using the Windows command-line environment?

R

Rachel

A lot of the answers here helped point me in the right direction, however none were suitable for me, so I am posting my solution.

I have Windows 7, which comes with PowerShell built-in. Here is the script I used to find/replace all instances of text in a file:

powershell -Command "(gc myFile.txt) -replace 'foo', 'bar' | Out-File -encoding ASCII myFile.txt"

To explain it:

powershell starts up powershell.exe, which is included in Windows 7

-Command "... " is a command line arg for powershell.exe containing the command to run

(gc myFile.txt) reads the content of myFile.txt (gc is short for the Get-Content command)

-replace 'foo', 'bar' simply runs the replace command to replace foo with bar

| Out-File myFile.txt pipes the output to the file myFile.txt

-encoding ASCII prevents transcribing the output file to unicode, as the comments point out

Powershell.exe should be part of your PATH statement already, but if not you can add it. The location of it on my machine is C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

Update Apparently modern windows systems have PowerShell built in allowing you to access this directly using

(Get-Content myFile.txt) -replace 'foo', 'bar' | Out-File -encoding ASCII myFile.txt

Beware, this command may also transcode the file to Unicode encoding. You can manually specify the encoding by adding -encoding ASCII or UTF8 or whatever is needed. Also beware, if you target UTF8, it may introduce a Byte Order Mark at the beginning of the file that did not appear in the original.

@Wyck It took me a while to figure out where to put -encoding ASCII. For anyone needing it in the future, it would be Out-File -encoding ASCII myFile.txt

The only thing I had to change was to use Set-Content instead of Out-File.

This works, but the performance is terrible on even a short list of files.

Beware that the replace token ('foo' in this case) is treated as a regular expression. If you have any special characters there ( I had [ ] ), you need to prepend them with a \ (backslash).

M

Michael Haren

If you are on Windows version that supports .Net 2.0, I would replace your shell. PowerShell gives you the full power of .Net from the command line. There are many commandlets built in as well. The example below will solve your question. I'm using the full names of the commands, there are shorter aliases, but this gives you something to Google for.

(Get-Content test.txt) | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "foo", "bar" } | Set-Content test2.txt

I can see PowerShell is capable of archieving this. But how can I make this run from a batch file (example: myProc.bat)?

@Pablo, use powershell.exe and wrap ps command into single parameter

-1.. Sure the answer was accepted, but it's not answer to the specified question.

This will fail with a file in use error if you save to the same file. You need to change the powershell command to: (Get-Content test.txt) | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "foo", "bar" } | Set-Content test.txt

See the answer from @Rachel: powershell -Command "(gc myFile.txt) -replace 'foo', 'bar' | sc myFile.txt"

V

VonC

Just used FART ("F ind A nd R eplace T ext" command line utility):
excellent little freeware for text replacement within a large set of files.

The setup files are on SourceForge.

Usage example:

fart.exe -p -r -c -- C:\tools\perl-5.8.9\* @@APP_DIR@@ C:\tools

will preview the replacements to do recursively in the files of this Perl distribution.

Only problem: the FART website icon isn't exactly tasteful, refined or elegant ;)

Update 2017 (7 years later) jagb points out in the comments to the 2011 article "FARTing the Easy Way – Find And Replace Text" from Mikail Tunç

As noted by Joe Jobs in the comments (Dec. 2020), if you want to replace &A for instance, you would need to use quotes in order to make sure & is not interpreted by the shell:

fart in.txt "&A" "B"

The cool thing is it's one single exe. No dependencies. No small prints. Super easy to deploy.

Thanks for the fart recommendation. Seems to work well, although I wish it supported regex.

Very lightweight and easy to use, but I was hoping it would print out the exact places that replacements took place. Not being able to see that gave me a sense of insecurity.

Thanks, it's perfect, should be part of the standard dos tools and worked a charm. The -p option however doesn't show you how many changes it 'would' make and always reports 0 which threw me for a few mins

I understand this is a very old question but I found more information and hope it will be helpful to Stack Overflow users. Just another link for FART where product is well explained: FART explaned @emtunc.org and another page can be found here: FART Please be careful with the replacement of / and ' as this is not working for all of us, for me it worked in some cases but it didn't work on some files and I don't know why.. I used this to replace text with other text and a /

R

RB.

Replace - Replace a substring using string substitution Description: To replace a substring with another string use the string substitution feature. The example shown here replaces all occurrences "teh" misspellings with "the" in the string variable str.

set str=teh cat in teh hat
echo.%str%
set str=%str:teh=the%
echo.%str%

Script Output:

teh cat in teh hat
the cat in the hat

ref: http://www.dostips.com/DtTipsStringManipulation.php#Snippets.Replace

How is the sed suggestion better? This seems to be the most simple answer of them all and requires installing nothing.

Can any sort of pattern matching be done here? Wildcards, Regex etc?

"How is the sed suggestion better?" - sed and similar utilities operate on files; this snippet omits the important step of reading lines from the input file and writing to the output file, while ensuring that any special characters in the file are handled correctly.

@Asad, yes that's true, the OP was asking about files, but in fact it works with streams which don't have to be files. But my point here is that this answer is flawed, since it omits reading/writing from a stream and handling any special characters.

@Bill how to use variable as a replacing text? ie. I have value in a variable and a string which has some delimter. set str=%str:"##"=%varValue%% doesn't work. Any workarounds?

J

JamesQMurphy

Create file replace.vbs:

Const ForReading = 1    
Const ForWriting = 2

strFileName = Wscript.Arguments(0)
strOldText = Wscript.Arguments(1)
strNewText = Wscript.Arguments(2)

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForReading)
strText = objFile.ReadAll
objFile.Close

strNewText = Replace(strText, strOldText, strNewText)
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForWriting)
objFile.Write strNewText  'WriteLine adds extra CR/LF
objFile.Close

To use this revised script (which we’ll call replace.vbs) just type a command similar to this from the command prompt:

cscript replace.vbs "C:\Scripts\Text.txt" "Jim " "James "

this is neat, does it allow the use of RegEx?

@user280109 Yes, VBScript supports RegExp. You can use this to replace using a regular expression: With (New RegExp): strNewText = .Replace(strText, strOldText, strNewText): End With. You can get the text of the first 9 capturing groups using $1, $2 ... $9.

VBScript is often overlooked (and hated on), but is available on all Windows platforms, is very readable and actually has very powerful capabilities +1

@user280109 You just given the command, What i need. But i want to replace (case-insensitive) Can you provide the command for that?

Thank you, This script was great, I love your prefix (str and obj word), I do the same, It's old but gold, It's make code more readable.

C

Community

BatchSubstitute.bat on dostips.com is an example of search and replace using a pure batch file.

It uses a combination of FOR, FIND and CALL SET.

Lines containing characters among "&<>]|^ may be treated incorrectly.

I have to question the usefulness of a code snippet site whose terms of use prohibit copying any of the code (“You may not distribute any information provided under the domain dostips.com in any form without express written permission of the domain owner.”).

I agree their terms are confusing, they also say "The information provided under the domain dostips.com is hopefully useful" so my assumption is that they are happy for people to copy the code to solve a problem. I'm not sure I have ever read any terms and conditions and been happy...

This is great. I love answers that don't involve downloading something else to do it.

I also like solutions that don't involve external utilities, unfortunately, I keep getting "find: invalid predicate `'" when I try to run this batch. Don't really have the time to debug it right now.

The "find: invalid predicate `'" error was due to an external 'find' utility on my system. Once removed, this worked fine.

d

dbenham

Note - Be sure to see the update at the end of this answer for a link to the superior JREPL.BAT that supersedes REPL.BAT
JREPL.BAT 7.0 and above natively supports unicode (UTF-16LE) via the /UTF option, as well as any other character set, including UTF-8, via ADO!!!!

I have written a small hybrid JScript/batch utility called REPL.BAT that is very convenient for modifying ASCII (or extended ASCII) files via the command line or a batch file. The purely native script does not require installation of any 3rd party executeable, and it works on any modern Windows version from XP onward. It is also very fast, especially when compared to pure batch solutions.

REPL.BAT simply reads stdin, performs a JScript regex search and replace, and writes the result to stdout.

Here is a trivial example of how to replace foo with bar in test.txt, assuming REPL.BAT is in your current folder, or better yet, somewhere within your PATH:

type test.txt|repl "foo" "bar" >test.txt.new
move /y test.txt.new test.txt

The JScript regex capabilities make it very powerful, especially the ability of the replacement text to reference captured substrings from the search text.

I've included a number of options in the utility that make it quite powerful. For example, combining the M and X options enable modification of binary files! The M Multi-line option allows searches across multiple lines. The X eXtended substitution pattern option provides escape sequences that enable inclusion of any binary value in the replacement text.

The entire utility could have been written as pure JScript, but the hybrid batch file eliminates the need to explicitly specify CSCRIPT every time you want to use the utility.

Here is the REPL.BAT script. Full documentation is embedded within the script.

@if (@X)==(@Y) @end /* Harmless hybrid line that begins a JScript comment

::************ Documentation ***********
::REPL.BAT version 6.2
:::
:::REPL  Search  Replace  [Options  [SourceVar]]
:::REPL  /?[REGEX|REPLACE]
:::REPL  /V
:::
:::  Performs a global regular expression search and replace operation on
:::  each line of input from stdin and prints the result to stdout.
:::
:::  Each parameter may be optionally enclosed by double quotes. The double
:::  quotes are not considered part of the argument. The quotes are required
:::  if the parameter contains a batch token delimiter like space, tab, comma,
:::  semicolon. The quotes should also be used if the argument contains a
:::  batch special character like &, |, etc. so that the special character
:::  does not need to be escaped with ^.
:::
:::  If called with a single argument of /?, then prints help documentation
:::  to stdout. If a single argument of /?REGEX, then opens up Microsoft's
:::  JScript regular expression documentation within your browser. If a single
:::  argument of /?REPLACE, then opens up Microsoft's JScript REPLACE
:::  documentation within your browser.
:::
:::  If called with a single argument of /V, case insensitive, then prints
:::  the version of REPL.BAT.
:::
:::  Search  - By default, this is a case sensitive JScript (ECMA) regular
:::            expression expressed as a string.
:::
:::            JScript regex syntax documentation is available at
:::            http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ae5bf541(v=vs.80).aspx
:::
:::  Replace - By default, this is the string to be used as a replacement for
:::            each found search expression. Full support is provided for
:::            substituion patterns available to the JScript replace method.
:::
:::            For example, $& represents the portion of the source that matched
:::            the entire search pattern, $1 represents the first captured
:::            submatch, $2 the second captured submatch, etc. A $ literal
:::            can be escaped as $$.
:::
:::            An empty replacement string must be represented as "".
:::
:::            Replace substitution pattern syntax is fully documented at
:::            http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/efy6s3e6(v=vs.80).aspx
:::
:::  Options - An optional string of characters used to alter the behavior
:::            of REPL. The option characters are case insensitive, and may
:::            appear in any order.
:::
:::            A - Only print altered lines. Unaltered lines are discarded.
:::                If the S options is present, then prints the result only if
:::                there was a change anywhere in the string. The A option is
:::                incompatible with the M option unless the S option is present.
:::
:::            B - The Search must match the beginning of a line.
:::                Mostly used with literal searches.
:::
:::            E - The Search must match the end of a line.
:::                Mostly used with literal searches.
:::
:::            I - Makes the search case-insensitive.
:::
:::            J - The Replace argument represents a JScript expression.
:::                The expression may access an array like arguments object
:::                named $. However, $ is not a true array object.
:::
:::                The $.length property contains the total number of arguments
:::                available. The $.length value is equal to n+3, where n is the
:::                number of capturing left parentheses within the Search string.
:::
:::                $[0] is the substring that matched the Search,
:::                $[1] through $[n] are the captured submatch strings,
:::                $[n+1] is the offset where the match occurred, and
:::                $[n+2] is the original source string.
:::
:::                Arguments $[0] through $[10] may be abbreviated as
:::                $1 through $10. Argument $[11] and above must use the square
:::                bracket notation.
:::
:::            L - The Search is treated as a string literal instead of a
:::                regular expression. Also, all $ found in the Replace string
:::                are treated as $ literals.
:::
:::            M - Multi-line mode. The entire contents of stdin is read and
:::                processed in one pass instead of line by line, thus enabling
:::                search for \n. This also enables preservation of the original
:::                line terminators. If the M option is not present, then every
:::                printed line is terminated with carriage return and line feed.
:::                The M option is incompatible with the A option unless the S
:::                option is also present.
:::
:::                Note: If working with binary data containing NULL bytes,
:::                      then the M option must be used.
:::
:::            S - The source is read from an environment variable instead of
:::                from stdin. The name of the source environment variable is
:::                specified in the next argument after the option string. Without
:::                the M option, ^ anchors the beginning of the string, and $ the
:::                end of the string. With the M option, ^ anchors the beginning
:::                of a line, and $ the end of a line.
:::
:::            V - Search and Replace represent the name of environment
:::                variables that contain the respective values. An undefined
:::                variable is treated as an empty string.
:::
:::            X - Enables extended substitution pattern syntax with support
:::                for the following escape sequences within the Replace string:
:::
:::                \\     -  Backslash
:::                \b     -  Backspace
:::                \f     -  Formfeed
:::                \n     -  Newline
:::                \q     -  Quote
:::                \r     -  Carriage Return
:::                \t     -  Horizontal Tab
:::                \v     -  Vertical Tab
:::                \xnn   -  Extended ASCII byte code expressed as 2 hex digits
:::                \unnnn -  Unicode character expressed as 4 hex digits
:::
:::                Also enables the \q escape sequence for the Search string.
:::                The other escape sequences are already standard for a regular
:::                expression Search string.
:::
:::                Also modifies the behavior of \xnn in the Search string to work
:::                properly with extended ASCII byte codes.
:::
:::                Extended escape sequences are supported even when the L option
:::                is used. Both Search and Replace support all of the extended
:::                escape sequences if both the X and L opions are combined.
:::
:::  Return Codes:  0 = At least one change was made
:::                     or the /? or /V option was used
:::
:::                 1 = No change was made
:::
:::                 2 = Invalid call syntax or incompatible options
:::
:::                 3 = JScript runtime error, typically due to invalid regex
:::
::: REPL.BAT was written by Dave Benham, with assistance from DosTips user Aacini
::: to get \xnn to work properly with extended ASCII byte codes. Also assistance
::: from DosTips user penpen diagnosing issues reading NULL bytes, along with a
::: workaround. REPL.BAT was originally posted at:
::: http://www.dostips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3855
:::

::************ Batch portion ***********
@echo off
if .%2 equ . (
  if "%~1" equ "/?" (
    <"%~f0" cscript //E:JScript //nologo "%~f0" "^:::" "" a
    exit /b 0
  ) else if /i "%~1" equ "/?regex" (
    explorer "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ae5bf541(v=vs.80).aspx"
    exit /b 0
  ) else if /i "%~1" equ "/?replace" (
    explorer "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/efy6s3e6(v=vs.80).aspx"
    exit /b 0
  ) else if /i "%~1" equ "/V" (
    <"%~f0" cscript //E:JScript //nologo "%~f0" "^::(REPL\.BAT version)" "$1" a
    exit /b 0
  ) else (
    call :err "Insufficient arguments"
    exit /b 2
  )
)
echo(%~3|findstr /i "[^SMILEBVXAJ]" >nul && (
  call :err "Invalid option(s)"
  exit /b 2
)
echo(%~3|findstr /i "M"|findstr /i "A"|findstr /vi "S" >nul && (
  call :err "Incompatible options"
  exit /b 2
)
cscript //E:JScript //nologo "%~f0" %*
exit /b %errorlevel%

:err
>&2 echo ERROR: %~1. Use REPL /? to get help.
exit /b

************* JScript portion **********/
var rtn=1;
try {
  var env=WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Environment("Process");
  var args=WScript.Arguments;
  var search=args.Item(0);
  var replace=args.Item(1);
  var options="g";
  if (args.length>2) options+=args.Item(2).toLowerCase();
  var multi=(options.indexOf("m")>=0);
  var alterations=(options.indexOf("a")>=0);
  if (alterations) options=options.replace(/a/g,"");
  var srcVar=(options.indexOf("s")>=0);
  if (srcVar) options=options.replace(/s/g,"");
  var jexpr=(options.indexOf("j")>=0);
  if (jexpr) options=options.replace(/j/g,"");
  if (options.indexOf("v")>=0) {
    options=options.replace(/v/g,"");
    search=env(search);
    replace=env(replace);
  }
  if (options.indexOf("x")>=0) {
    options=options.replace(/x/g,"");
    if (!jexpr) {
      replace=replace.replace(/\\\\/g,"\\B");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\q/g,"\"");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x80/g,"\\u20AC");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x82/g,"\\u201A");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x83/g,"\\u0192");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x84/g,"\\u201E");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x85/g,"\\u2026");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x86/g,"\\u2020");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x87/g,"\\u2021");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x88/g,"\\u02C6");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x89/g,"\\u2030");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x8[aA]/g,"\\u0160");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x8[bB]/g,"\\u2039");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x8[cC]/g,"\\u0152");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x8[eE]/g,"\\u017D");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x91/g,"\\u2018");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x92/g,"\\u2019");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x93/g,"\\u201C");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x94/g,"\\u201D");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x95/g,"\\u2022");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x96/g,"\\u2013");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x97/g,"\\u2014");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x98/g,"\\u02DC");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x99/g,"\\u2122");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[aA]/g,"\\u0161");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[bB]/g,"\\u203A");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[cC]/g,"\\u0153");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[dD]/g,"\\u009D");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[eE]/g,"\\u017E");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x9[fF]/g,"\\u0178");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\b/g,"\b");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\f/g,"\f");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\n/g,"\n");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\r/g,"\r");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\t/g,"\t");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\v/g,"\v");
      replace=replace.replace(/\\x[0-9a-fA-F]{2}|\\u[0-9a-fA-F]{4}/g,
        function($0,$1,$2){
          return String.fromCharCode(parseInt("0x"+$0.substring(2)));
        }
      );
      replace=replace.replace(/\\B/g,"\\");
    }
    search=search.replace(/\\\\/g,"\\B");
    search=search.replace(/\\q/g,"\"");
    search=search.replace(/\\x80/g,"\\u20AC");
    search=search.replace(/\\x82/g,"\\u201A");
    search=search.replace(/\\x83/g,"\\u0192");
    search=search.replace(/\\x84/g,"\\u201E");
    search=search.replace(/\\x85/g,"\\u2026");
    search=search.replace(/\\x86/g,"\\u2020");
    search=search.replace(/\\x87/g,"\\u2021");
    search=search.replace(/\\x88/g,"\\u02C6");
    search=search.replace(/\\x89/g,"\\u2030");
    search=search.replace(/\\x8[aA]/g,"\\u0160");
    search=search.replace(/\\x8[bB]/g,"\\u2039");
    search=search.replace(/\\x8[cC]/g,"\\u0152");
    search=search.replace(/\\x8[eE]/g,"\\u017D");
    search=search.replace(/\\x91/g,"\\u2018");
    search=search.replace(/\\x92/g,"\\u2019");
    search=search.replace(/\\x93/g,"\\u201C");
    search=search.replace(/\\x94/g,"\\u201D");
    search=search.replace(/\\x95/g,"\\u2022");
    search=search.replace(/\\x96/g,"\\u2013");
    search=search.replace(/\\x97/g,"\\u2014");
    search=search.replace(/\\x98/g,"\\u02DC");
    search=search.replace(/\\x99/g,"\\u2122");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[aA]/g,"\\u0161");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[bB]/g,"\\u203A");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[cC]/g,"\\u0153");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[dD]/g,"\\u009D");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[eE]/g,"\\u017E");
    search=search.replace(/\\x9[fF]/g,"\\u0178");
    if (options.indexOf("l")>=0) {
      search=search.replace(/\\b/g,"\b");
      search=search.replace(/\\f/g,"\f");
      search=search.replace(/\\n/g,"\n");
      search=search.replace(/\\r/g,"\r");
      search=search.replace(/\\t/g,"\t");
      search=search.replace(/\\v/g,"\v");
      search=search.replace(/\\x[0-9a-fA-F]{2}|\\u[0-9a-fA-F]{4}/g,
        function($0,$1,$2){
          return String.fromCharCode(parseInt("0x"+$0.substring(2)));
        }
      );
      search=search.replace(/\\B/g,"\\");
    } else search=search.replace(/\\B/g,"\\\\");
  }
  if (options.indexOf("l")>=0) {
    options=options.replace(/l/g,"");
    search=search.replace(/([.^$*+?()[{\\|])/g,"\\$1");
    if (!jexpr) replace=replace.replace(/\$/g,"$$$$");
  }
  if (options.indexOf("b")>=0) {
    options=options.replace(/b/g,"");
    search="^"+search
  }
  if (options.indexOf("e")>=0) {
    options=options.replace(/e/g,"");
    search=search+"$"
  }
  var search=new RegExp(search,options);
  var str1, str2;

  if (srcVar) {
    str1=env(args.Item(3));
    str2=str1.replace(search,jexpr?replFunc:replace);
    if (!alterations || str1!=str2) if (multi) {
      WScript.Stdout.Write(str2);
    } else {
      WScript.Stdout.WriteLine(str2);
    }
    if (str1!=str2) rtn=0;
  } else if (multi){
    var buf=1024;
    str1="";
    while (!WScript.StdIn.AtEndOfStream) {
      str1+=WScript.StdIn.Read(buf);
      buf*=2
    }
    str2=str1.replace(search,jexpr?replFunc:replace);
    WScript.Stdout.Write(str2);
    if (str1!=str2) rtn=0;
  } else {
    while (!WScript.StdIn.AtEndOfStream) {
      str1=WScript.StdIn.ReadLine();
      str2=str1.replace(search,jexpr?replFunc:replace);
      if (!alterations || str1!=str2) WScript.Stdout.WriteLine(str2);
      if (str1!=str2) rtn=0;
    }
  }
} catch(e) {
  WScript.Stderr.WriteLine("JScript runtime error: "+e.message);
  rtn=3;
}
WScript.Quit(rtn);

function replFunc($0, $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10) {
  var $=arguments;
  return(eval(replace));
}

IMPORTANT UPDATE

I have ceased development of REPL.BAT, and replaced it with JREPL.BAT. This newer utility has all the same functionality of REPL.BAT, plus much more:

Unicode UTF-16LE support via native CSCRIPT unicode capabilities, and any other character set (including UTF-8) via ADO.

Read directly from / write directly to a file: no need for pipes, redirection, or move command.

Incorporate user supplied JScript

Translation facility similar to unix tr, only it also supports regex search and JScript replace

Discard non-matching text

Prefix output lines with line number

and more...

As always, full documentation is embedded within the script.

The original trivial solution is now even simpler:

jrepl "foo" "bar" /f test.txt /o -

The current version of JREPL.BAT is available at DosTips. Read all of the subsequent posts in the thread to see examples of usage and a history of the development.

Great stuff! I love this b/c of the simplicity and the way you can adapt it to whatever script, hence writing JS code than crappy batch.

Edit - Added the A option to only print lines that have been modified. Also enhanced the X option to support \q to represent ", and Search literals now support all the extended escape sequences when L and X options are combined.

@dbenham - +1. This is a slick approach, it will come in handy for several other tasks as well. Thanks for posting it.

EDIT - I modified behavior of \xnn when X option is used so that the code represents the extended ASCII byte code. Also added a /V version option.

@dbenham This is a gem. Why don't you put it up on GitHub or as a Gist? Would make versioning, follow-ups, releases/distribution, fixes and more easier. If you need help with that, let me know.

C

Community

Use FNR

Use the fnr utility. It's got some advantages over fart:

Regular expressions

Optional GUI. Has a "Generate command line button" to create command line text to put in batch file.

Multi-line patterns: The GUI allows you to easily work with multi-line patterns. In FART you'd have to manually escape line breaks.

Allows you to select text file encoding. Also has an auto detect option.

Download FNR here: http://findandreplace.io/?z=codeplex

Usage example: fnr --cl --dir "<Directory Path>" --fileMask "hibernate.*" --useRegEx --find "find_str_expression" --replace "replace_string"

This is nice. Being able to generate the command line from the gui is a nice simple feature that got me going quickly.

Very useful tool. Tried FART before but the documentation is out of date.

Cool tool,it even supports regular expression. This is something that FART is missing.

Thanks for indicating this tool. Single exe, great replacement for FART which is no longer developed (and misses regex); and PowerShell syntax is sooo unbearable.

Best advantage in 'fart' that is releases the stomach

L

Leptonator

I know I am late to the party..

Personally, I like the solution at: - http://www.dostips.com/DtTipsStringManipulation.php#Snippets.Replace

We also, use the Dedupe Function extensively to help us deliver approximately 500 e-mails daily via SMTP from: - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.msdos.batch.nt/sj8IUhMOq6o

and these both work natively with no extra tools or utilities needed.

REPLACER:

DEL New.txt
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
For /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (OLD.txt) do (
Set str=%%a
set str=!str:FOO=BAR!
echo !str!>>New.txt
)
ENDLOCAL

DEDUPLICATOR (note the use of -9 for an ABA number):

REM DE-DUPLICATE THE Mapping.txt FILE
REM THE DE-DUPLICATED FILE IS STORED AS new.txt

set MapFile=Mapping.txt
set ReplaceFile=New.txt

del %ReplaceFile%
::DelDupeText.bat
rem https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.msdos.batch.nt/sj8IUhMOq6o
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "tokens=1,2 delims=," %%a in (%MapFile%) do (
set str=%%a
rem Ref: http://www.dostips.com/DtTipsStringManipulation.php#Snippets.RightString
set str=!str:~-9!
set str2=%%a
set str3=%%a,%%b

find /i ^"!str!^" %MapFile%
find /i ^"!str!^" %ReplaceFile%
if errorlevel 1 echo !str3!>>%ReplaceFile%
)
ENDLOCAL

Thanks!

the batch script does nothing but a mere file-copy - also : why are you thanking yourself?

The original request was to replace "FOO" with "BAR" in a text file using a batch script and with preferably built-in functions. If anything I was thanking the Google Groups post I had found which works fantastic and we still use it to this day. Also, see posts and responses like these as being helpful for users coming down the road as well. I fail to see your comment about file copy.. Sure, it takes the content of one file and echo's the result into another file, but based on the data, it does trim and parse off the needed information. I would recommend giving it a try first. ;)

its basically a file-copy tool which replaces two static strings - you could've at least placed two variables in there so people who want to try it wont need to understand the syntax in order to actually be able to use it -- also : assumptions over the internet are almost always completely wrong. Remember that.

@specializt - Please... I am not here to debate semantics. If you like, can we take this offline into the chat room.

In my opinion, this is the answer to the original question. I will be using this tip to configure initialization files for a service during setup, and I would not want to enable PowerShell, or allow the scripting engine to run on my servers. So often answers to questions related to windows, start with "install this gizmo from there" as there is still a "PC" attitude around.

P

Pat

I don't think there's a way to do it with any built-in commands. I would suggest you download something like Gnuwin32 or UnxUtils and use the sed command (or download only sed):

sed -c s/FOO/BAR/g filename

Use cygwin (cygwin.com). It's the next best thing to actually installing linux.

It's better if one can provide a solution that doesn't rely on installing cygwin. POSIX string manipulation is a no-brainer - doing this on Windows is a little more obscure.

Gnuwin32 and UnxUtils are stand-alone binaries built for Windows. They are not dependent on cygwin.

cygwin: sed -i -b -e 's/FOO/BAR/g' `find . -name *.txt` -i -- edit file inplace; -b -- do not process CR+LF - without this option CR+LF would be converted to LF

@AndrewJohnson Opinion and information are two different things.

J

Jens A. Koch

When you work with Git on Windows then simply fire up git-bash and use sed. Or, when using Windows 10, start "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" (from the Linux subsystem) and use sed.

Its a stream editor, but can edit files directly by using the following command:

sed -i -e 's/foo/bar/g' filename

-i option is used to edit in place on filename.

-e option indicates a command to run. s is used to replace the found expression "foo" with "bar" and g is used to replace any found matches.

s is used to replace the found expression "foo" with "bar" and g is used to replace any found matches.

Note by ereOn:

If you want to replace a string in versioned files only of a Git repository, you may want to use:

git ls-files <eventual subfolders & filters> | xargs sed -i -e 's/foo/bar/g'

which works wonders.

Note that if you are indeed doing that rename in a git repository and only want to replace in versionned files, you may want to do: git ls-files <eventual subfolders & filters> | xargs sed -i -e 's/foo/bar/g' which works wonders.

S

Simon East

I played around with some of the existing answers here and prefer my improved solution...

type test.txt | powershell -Command "$input | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace \"foo\", \"bar\" }"

or if you want to save the output again to a file...

type test.txt | powershell -Command "$input | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace \"foo\", \"bar\" }" > outputFile.txt

The benefit of this is that you can pipe in output from any program. Will look into using regular expressions with this too. Couldn't work out how to make it into a BAT file for easier use though... :-(

This is a good solution. Unfortunately, using type means all lines greater than 80 characters get wrapped. What a pain.

C

CoolBeans

I have used perl, and that works marvelously.

perl -pi.orig -e "s/<textToReplace>/<textToReplaceWith>/g;" <fileName>

.orig is the extension it would append to the original file

For a number of files matching such as *.html

for %x in (<filePattern>) do perl -pi.orig -e "s/<textToReplace>/<textToReplaceWith>/g;" %x

This is the simplest solution +1, when converting from sh to bat, just replace sed with perl -pi.backup -e and appreciate it :)

G

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

Here's a solution that I found worked on Win XP. In my running batch file, I included the following:

set value=new_value

:: Setup initial configuration
:: I use && as the delimiter in the file because it should not exist, thereby giving me the whole line
::
echo --> Setting configuration and properties.
for /f "tokens=* delims=&&" %%a in (config\config.txt) do ( 
  call replace.bat "%%a" _KEY_ %value% config\temp.txt 
)
del config\config.txt
rename config\temp.txt config.txt

The replace.bat file is as below. I did not find a way to include that function within the same batch file, because the %%a variable always seems to give the last value in the for loop.

replace.bat:

@echo off

:: This ensures the parameters are resolved prior to the internal variable
::
SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansion

:: Replaces Key Variables
::
:: Parameters:
:: %1  = Line to search for replacement
:: %2  = Key to replace
:: %3  = Value to replace key with
:: %4  = File in which to write the replacement
::

:: Read in line without the surrounding double quotes (use ~)
::
set line=%~1

:: Write line to specified file, replacing key (%2) with value (%3)
::
echo !line:%2=%3! >> %4

:: Restore delayed expansion
::
EndLocal

Sadly this also skips blank lines. A feature of the {{for}} command.

n

npocmaka

With the replacer.bat

1) With e? option that will evaluate special character sequences like \n\r and unicode sequences. In this case will replace quoted "Foo" and "Bar":

call replacer.bat "e?C:\content.txt" "\u0022Foo\u0022" "\u0022Bar\u0022"

2) Straightforward replacing where the Foo and Bar are not quoted.

call replacer.bat "C:\content.txt" "Foo" "Bar"

C

Community

Take a look at Is there any sed like utility for cmd.exe which asked for a sed equivalent under Windows, should apply to this question as well. Executive summary:

It can be done in batch file, but it's not pretty

Lots of available third party executables that will do it for you, if you have the luxury of installing or just copying over an exe

Can be done with VBScript or similar if you need something able to run on a Windows box without modification etc.

C

Cody Gray

Power shell command works like a charm

(
test.txt | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "foo", "bar" } | Set-Content test2.txt
)

U

Usman Maqbool

Two batch files that supply search and replace functions have been written by Stack Overflow members dbenham and aacini using native built-in jscript in Windows.

They are both robust and very swift with large files compared to plain batch scripting, and also simpler to use for basic replacing of text. They both have Windows regular expression pattern matching.

Thissed-like helper batch file is called repl.bat (by dbenham). Example using the L literal switch: echo This is FOO here|repl "FOO" "BAR" L echo and with a file: type "file.txt" |repl "FOO" "BAR" L >"newfile.txt" This grep-like helper batch file is called findrepl.bat (by aacini). Example which has regular expressions active: echo This is FOO here|findrepl "FOO" "BAR" echo and with a file: type "file.txt" |findrepl "FOO" "BAR" >"newfile.txt"

Both become powerful system-wide utilities when placed in a folder that is on the path, or can be used in the same folder with a batch file, or from the cmd prompt.

They both have case-insensitive switches and also many other functions.

P

Peter Schuetze

May be a little bit late, but I am frequently looking for similar stuff, since I don't want to get through the pain of getting software approved.

However, you usually use the FOR statement in various forms. Someone created a useful batch file that does a search and replace. Have a look here. It is important to understand the limitations of the batch file provided. For this reason I don't copy the source code in this answer.

e

eQ19

I'm prefer to use sed from GNU utilities for Win32, the followings need to be noted

single quote '' won't work in windows, use "" instead sed -i won't work in windows, it will need file swapping

So the working code of sed to find and replace text in a file in windows is as below

sed -e "s/foo/bar/g" test.txt > tmp.txt && mv tmp.txt test.txt

Before Windows users immediately do file swapping: newer versions of sed support in-place editing with -i! If your sed version does, then check the command from this answer: stackoverflow.com/a/33762001/2492801.

j

jeb

Just faced a similar problem - "Search and replace text within files", but with the exception that for both filenames and search/repalce I need to use regex. Because I'm not familiar with Powershell and want to save my searches for later use I need something more "user friendly" (preferable if it has GUI).

So, while Googling :) I found a great tool - FAR (Find And Replace) (not FART).

That little program has nice GUI and support regex for searching in filenames and within files. Only disadventage is that if you want to save your settings you have to run the program as an administrator (at least on Win7).

W

Wagner Pereira

Use powershell in .bat - for Windows 7+

encoding utf8 is optional, good for web sites

@echo off
set ffile='myfile.txt'
set fold='FOO'
set fnew='BAR'
powershell -Command "(gc %ffile%) -replace %fold%, %fnew% | Out-File %ffile% -encoding utf8"

佚

佚名

This is one thing that batch scripting just does not do well.

The script morechilli linked to will work for some files, but unfortunately it will choke on ones which contain characters such as pipes and ampersands.

VBScript is a better built-in tool for this task. See this article for an example: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/feb05/hey0208.mspx

W

Whome

@Rachel gave an excellent answer but here is a variation of it to read content to a powershell $data variable. You may then easily manipulate content multiple times before writing to a output file. Also see how multi-line values are given in a .bat batch files.

@REM ASCII=7bit ascii(no bom), UTF8=with bom marker
set cmd=^
  $old = '\$Param1\$'; ^
  $new = 'Value1'; ^
  [string[]]$data = Get-Content 'datafile.txt'; ^
  $data = $data -replace $old, $new; ^
  out-file -InputObject $data -encoding UTF8 -filepath 'datafile.txt';
powershell -NoLogo -Noninteractive -InputFormat none -Command "%cmd%"

G

Georgie

For me, to be sure to not change the encoding (from UTF-8), keeping accents... the only way was to mention the default encoding before and after :

powershell -Command "(gc 'My file.sql' -encoding "Default") -replace 'String 1', 'String 2' | Out-File -encoding "Default" 'My file.sql'"

j

jm.

Download Cygwin (free) and use unix-like commands at the Windows command line.

Your best bet: sed

Cygwin is evil. Don't install it. Better use UnixUtils mentioned below.

@jm May be because you have to install the whole thing together instead of use a single executable whenever you want to.

Better use powershell, it is actually built-in in windows.

Cygwin has known issues. DO NOT USE.

G

George Birbilis

Can also see the Replace and ReplaceFilter tools at https://zoomicon.github.io/tranXform/ (source included). The 2nd one is a filter.

The tool that replaces strings in files is in VBScript (needs Windows Script Host [WSH] to run in old Windows versions)

The filter is probably not working with Unicode unless you recompile with latest Delphi (or with FreePascal/Lazarus)

S

Shivam Tyagi

Powershell Command -

Getting content of the file and replacing it with some other text and then storing into another file

Command -1 (Get-Content filename.xml)| ForEach-Object { $_.replace("some_text","replace_text").replace("some_other_text","replace_text") } | Set-Content filename2.xml

Copying another file into the original one file

Command2

Copy-Item -Path filename2.xml -Destination filename.xml -PassThru

removing another one file

Command 3

Remove-Item filename2.xml

h

halfer

Notepad++ does this ALL for you with the "Find in files" command.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/WrHHK.png

https://i.stack.imgur.com/VMpKL.png

And how do you use it from a script, to automate a task? And last time I looked, notepad++ wasn't shipped with windows (Any built in functions?)

The original question was answered, by many. I was responding to the myriad of replies looking for a SOLUTION. MINE is a definitive ANSWER and a solution that is easy to implement from your administration point: Notepad++ is FREE and works very well.

I recently had to find and replace nested cmd files in a robocopy script to add multithreading that ended up being over 60 files in multiple locations. Notepad ++ did it ALL in moments from the root. It's free, has 64 bit support, get's updated regularly, and does not require ridiculous amounts of coding to use or cost 600$ minimum/year. EXCELLENT admin programming solutions. notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads

N

Nadjib

I have faced this problem several times while coding under Visual C++. If you have it, you can use Visual studio Find and Replace Utility. It allows you to select a folder and replace the contents of any file in that folder with any other text you want.

Under Visual Studio: Edit -> Find and Replace In the opened dialog, select your folder and fill in "Find What" and "Replace With" boxes. Hope this will be helpful.

Nadjib, your answer doesn't help the user because your assuming they are using software of which they make no mention. Please suggest an option that doesn't require software.

@Aibrean the answer is no use, but not for that reason, it's the entry point that is wrong.

This response does not deserve the downvotes. In a Windows environment, there aren't a lot of good options to solve the OP's problem. I happen to code in VS and found this to be an excellent answer, and saved me a ton of time hunting for another solution. Replaced 20k+ occurrences in over 2k files across 3 directories in less than a min.

How can you find and replace text in a file using the Windows command-line environment?

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