7.16. replaceA String-Replacement UtilityThe replace utility program changes strings in place in files or on the standard input. Invoke replace in one of the following ways: shell> replace from to [from to] ... -- file [file] ... shell> replace from to [from to] ... < file from represents a string to look for and to represents its replacement. There can be one or more pairs of strings. Use the -- option to indicate where the string-replacement list ends and the filenames begin. In this case, any file named on the command line is modified in place, so you may want to make a copy of the original before converting it. replace prints a message indicating which of the input files it actually modifies. If the -- option is not given, replace reads the standard input and writes to the standard output. replace uses a finite state machine to match longer strings first. It can be used to swap strings. For example, the following command swaps a and b in the given files, file1 and file2: shell> replace a b b a -- file1 file2 ... replace supports the following options:
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