Git tips - replace all occurrences of a string in files

Git can be used from VisualStudio, however it's like saying you drive a car, when actually you play Need for Speed. Unleash the full power of Git, learn to use it. It's not that hard.

Doesn't matter if you are a beginner or an advanced user, you should know what an git alias is. If you don't know, go here immediately: Git Basics - Git Aliases.

Today, you will get a very useful git alias. It's for replacing all occurrences of one string with another. Suppose you want to replace EntityFramework with NHibernate in your project (which seems to be a pretty reasonable thing to do:) ). Here is the alias:

replaceall = "!f() { git grep -l \"$1\" | xargs sed -b -i \"s/$1/$2/g\"; }; f"

The first part of the alias lists all files containing first argument and passes it through pipe and xargs to sed, which performs the replacement. Use it like this:

git replaceall EntityFramework NHibernate

 Please note: it will replace all occurrences of "EntityFramework" with "NHibernate" in all tracked and untracked files.