Hi!

Im not a perl programmer, but am partial to a specific command line invocation, which I think is fairly well known, namely, in my "letter directory" where I keep my love letter files I do a: 
perl -p -i -e 's!oldgirlfriendname!newgirlfriendname!g' *

[download]
Yes, fairly self-explanatory and ruthless, I should think.

HOWEVER, the directory has a bunch of other letters which have nothing to do with my girlfriends. However, the above command line, actually changes the modification date on those too, even if no text has been replaced.

Does anybody know a version of this command line invocation where the files not affected by the replacement retain their original modification date?

Thanks in adv.

In reply to perlpie only on files with affected contents by stabu

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