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Hah, well, hate to break it to you, but ripgrep never writes files, only reads them. So its `-r/--replace` option only controls ripgrep's output, but doesn't actually replace data inside a file.


I could swear I used it to do just that a handful of times in the past. But my brain's been a bit scrambled recently so I'm probably misremembering now. I know for sure I made use of the replace option and was happy it was there and that using it felt better than using sed.

I guess it does make sense now that I think about it that ripgrep wouldn't do in-place edits. If ripgrep never performs writes, there's never a chance of a mistake in usage or bug in the software clobbering files in bulk.


I maintain a pair of tools that can do in-place file replacements on ripgrep output (https://github.com/robenkleene/rep-grep) and rename files based on `fd` output (https://github.com/robenkleene/ren-find).


> If ripgrep never performs writes, there's never a chance of a mistake in usage or bug in the software clobbering files in bulk.

Yeah that's exactly why it doesn't.

It is true that the `-r/--replace` flag can replace a number of `sed` and `awk` use cases. It has for me at least.




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