Find and replace in file and overwrite file doesn't work, it empties the file

Question

I would like to run a find and replace on an HTML file through the command line.

My command looks something like this:

sed -e s/STRING_TO_REPLACE/STR         


        

Answer 1

With all due respect to the above correct answers, it's always a good idea to "dry run" scripts like that, so that you don't corrupt your file and have to start again from scratch.

Just get your script to spill the output to the command line instead of writing it to the file, for example, like that:

sed -e s/STRING_TO_REPLACE/STRING_TO_REPLACE_IT/g index.html

OR

less index.html | sed -e s/STRING_TO_REPLACE/STRING_TO_REPLACE_IT/g 

This way you can see and check the output of the command without getting your file truncated.