For a minor tweak ( says the sysadmin, forever worried about users wasting his cycles ), try it this way 
find . -type f | xargs perl -pi.bak -e 's/string x/string y/g'

[download]
Using the -exec flag will exec a perl for every file found. This can be slow and painful - the most expensive part of perl is the initial load. By piping to xargs, you start perl but once.

If you you have too many files to fit on one command line, you can modify the command like this: 

find . -type f | xargs -n 255 perl -pi.bak -e 's/string x/string y/g'

[download]
which will cause xargs to call perl with 255 files each time.

Mik
Mik Firestone ( perlus bigotus maximus )

In reply to RE: Replace across files (extreme newbie) by mikfire
in thread Replace across files (extreme newbie) by Anonymous Monk

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