in reply to Multiline search and replace in file(s)
You can use the following pattern to slurp and spew a file:
use warnings; use strict; my @files = <Test*_Copy>; for my $modfile (@files) { # read open my $ifh, '<', $modfile or die "$modfile: $!"; my $data = do { local $/; <$ifh> }; # slurp close $ifh; # modify $data =~ s/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\n/CHANGED!!!\n/s +mg; # write open my $ofh, '>', $modfile or die "$modfile: $!"; print $ofh $data; close $ofh; }
(Slurping can also be shortened to my $data = do { open my $fh, '<', $modfile or die $!; local $/; <$fh> };, though that's a bit less readable if you're not used to it).
Or you can use a nice module like Path::Class or Path::Tiny:
use warnings; use strict; use Path::Tiny; my @files = path(".")->children(qr/^Test.*_Copy$/); for my $modfile (@files) { $modfile->edit(sub { s/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\n/CHANGED!!!\n/smg; }); }
Or you can use a oneliner (see also $^I):
perl -wMstrict -0777 -i -pe 's/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\ +n/CHANGED!!!\n/smg' Test*_Copy
Or you can use my module File::Replace for atomic updates when the filesystem supports it:
use warnings; use strict; use File::Replace 'replace3'; my @files = <Test*_Copy>; for my $modfile (@files) { my ($infh,$outfh,$repl) = replace3($modfile); my $data = do { local $/; <$infh> }; $data =~ s/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\n/CHANGED!!!\n/s +mg; print $outfh $data; $repl->finish; }
Or you can open the file in read-write mode, truncate it after reading, and then write it - though note I see this being done very rarely. (It's useful if you want to flock the file while editing. That can be as simple as adding use Fcntl qw/:flock/; at the top of the code and flock($fh, LOCK_EX) or die "flock $modfile: $!"; immediately after the open. Keep in mind that flock locks are merely advisory, though!)
use warnings; use strict; my @files = <Test*_Copy>; for my $modfile (@files) { open my $fh, '+<', $modfile or die "$modfile: $!"; my $data = do { local $/; <$fh> }; $data =~ s/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\n/CHANGED!!!\n/s +mg; seek $fh, 0, 0 or die $!; truncate $fh, 0 or die $!; print $fh $data; close $fh; }
Note that glob has several caveats, though as shown in this code it's ok.
Updates: Added info on flock and $^I.