git-filter-branch to remove strings, but where strings contain $ ' \ and other characters

Question

I\'m trying to rewrite history, using:

git filter-branch --tree-filter \'git ls-files -z \"*.php\" |xargs -0 perl -p -i -e \"s#(PASSWORD1|PASSWORD2|PASSWORD3)#

Answer 1

Build it from the inside out. Say the password is

a$b'c\d

The regex pattern would be

a\$b'c\\d

One possibility for the perl command would be

perl -i -pe's/a\$b'\''c\\d/.../g'

(Note how each ' was replaced with '\''.)

Now you need to include that in single quotes, so you repeat the process.

... '... perl -i -pe'\''s/a\$b'\''\'\'''\''c\\d/.../g'\''' ...