I used this:

grep -r "old_string" -l | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

1. List all files that contain old_string.

2. Replace newline in result with spaces (so that the list of files can be fed to sed.

3. Run sed on those files to replace old string with new.

Update: The above result will fail on filenames that contain whitespaces. Instead, use:

grep --null -lr "old_string" | xargs --null sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

I used this:

grep -r "old_string" -l | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

1. List all files that contain old_string.

2. Replace newline in result with spaces (so that the list of files can be fed to sed.

3. Run sed on those files to replace old string with new.

Update: The above result will fail on filenames that contain whitespaces. Instead, use:

grep --null -lr "old_string" | xargs --null sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

I used this:

grep -r "old_string" -l | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

1. List all files that contain old_string.

2. Replace newline in result with spaces (so that the list of files can be fed to sed.

3. Run sed on those files to replace old string with new.

I used this:

grep -r "old_string" -l | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'

1. List all files that contain old_string.

2. Replace newline in result with spaces (so that the list of files can be fed to sed.

3. Run sed on those files to replace old string with new.

Update: The above result will fail on filenames that contain whitespaces. Instead, use:

grep --null -lr "old_string" | xargs --null sed -i 's/old_string/new_string/g'