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Not sure how this can be so hard but here goes, im trying to search for files in a directory which match a certain pattern, this is easy, when I find these files I want to read through them, search for a string which matches a specific pattern then edit these files by adding an # at the start of the matched line.

Can I do this with one search and replace by appending the current file and editing. I thought this would be simple, it probably is for you gurus but I'm only an "occasional" scripter

Here is what I got so far. I could have multiple files called rc.itm1 or rc.itm2 etc in the /etc dir. So I need to find these files, edit a line which matches "start ux" by inserting an # at the beginning of line

Current code finds the files, finds the string, and prints the string with an # in front but I'm struggling to work out how to successfully search and replace this string in the same file and save it off.

current code....

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my $dir="/etc";
opendir ( DIR, $dir ) || die "Error in opening dir $dir\n";
my @files=sort(grep(/^rc\.itm\d+$/, readdir(DIR)));
closedir(DIR);
foreach my $file(@files){
        my $this_file=$dir . "/" . $file;
        print "$this_file\n";
        open IN, "< $this_file";
        while (<IN>){
                if ($_ =~ /start ux/){
                        print "#$_";
                        }
                }
}

[download]
Can anyone help me out please?

In reply to Write to existing file with character insert by Mark.Allan

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