You might have found yourself stuck when need arises to change a script, block of code or even words that appear frequently in your website across multiple files in a repo. For example, links and titles etc. Instead of opening every file and doing an edit, a script can automate the whole process.

Yes, you can certainly automate this edit across multiple files in a GitHub repository. One common approach is to use scripting or automation tools.

Github's Web Interface

Before we proceed, GitHub's web interface doesn't provide direct functionality to perform batch search and replace operations across multiple files like you can with a script or automation tool on your local machine. This article will direct on how to automate such edit actions locally.

However, there are a couple of indirect ways you might handle this through the GitHub web interface:

1. Editing Files Manually:

   You can manually edit each file via the GitHub web interface. This is feasible if you have a small number of files, but it can be tedious and time-consuming for larger numbers.

2. Using GitHub's Find and Replace Tool:

   GitHub has a built-in find and replace tool, but it's not available for general use. GitHub Support can enable it for certain situations, such as when a user needs to make a large-scale update to their repository. You would need to contact GitHub Support and explain your situation to see if they can enable the tool for your repository.

Scripting for Automation

If you have a large number of files or anticipate needing to perform similar tasks in the future, using a local script or automation tool would likely be more efficient and practical.

Here's a basic outline of how you could achieve this:

Clone the Repository:

1. First, clone the repository to your local machine if you haven't already.

    git clone <repository_url>
   

2. Write a Script:

   Write a script that iterates through all HTML files in the repository and replaces occurrences of eg; https://datalytika.net/web.html with https://datalytika.net. You can use any scripting language you're comfortable with, such as Python, Bash, or even JavaScript.

   For example, if you're using Python, you could write a script like this:

    import os
   
    def replace_in_file(file_path, old_string, new_string):
        with open(file_path, 'r') as file:
            file_contents = file.read()
        file_contents = file_contents.replace(old_string, new_string)
        with open(file_path, 'w') as file:
            file.write(file_contents)
   
    def main():
        root_dir = './path/to/your/repository'
        old_string = 'https://datalytika.net/web.html'
        new_string = 'https://datalytika.net'
   
        for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(root_dir):
            for filename in filenames:
                if filename.endswith('.html'):
                    file_path = os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
                    replace_in_file(file_path, old_string, new_string)
   
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        main()
   

   Make sure to replace ./path/to/your/repository with the actual path to your cloned repository.

3. Test Your Script:

   Before proceeding, it's crucial to test your script to ensure it behaves as expected. You can do this by running it on a small subset of files or in a test environment.

4. Commit and Push Changes:

5. Once you're confident in your script, run it on your entire repository. After the replacements are made, commit the changes.

    git add .
    git commit -m "Fixed incorrect links"
    git push origin master
   

6. Verify Changes:

   Verify that the changes have been applied correctly by checking a few files in your repository or by running your web app locally.

7. Cleanup:

   If everything looks good, you can clean up your script and any temporary files you created during the process.

This way, you can automate the process of correcting the links across multiple files in your GitHub repository.