Vim :Ag search and replace, globally and within a directory

Question

I am using :Ag in vim to search for patterns, but I can't figure out how to search and replace through ALL files in my project, or within a directly that I specify. How is this done?

Answer 1

In Vim, project-wide search and replace is at best a two-step process unless you install a plugin that abstracts those two steps for you like EasyGrep.

In its most basic form, project-wide search/replace looks like this:

:args `grep -nl foo *.js`
:argdo %s/foo/bar/c

It won't help you much with :Ag, though, because Vim doesn't have a built-in command similar to the :*do family that works on the quickfix list.

Drew Neil has a couple of screencasts, here and there, that deal with project-wide search/replace. The :Qfdo command mentionned at the bottom of the second post is specifically geared toward :vimgrep/:Ack/:Ag users. With that command and :Ag, the two-step process becomes:

:Ag foo
:Qfdo s/foo/bar/c

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-- EDIT --

Vim now has :cdo, :cfdo, :ldo, :lfdo.