Open all files in project with long lines in an editor

Question

I'd like to edit all text files under a certain directory that have one or more lines that are over a certain threshold in length. How can I do that?

To keep things simple, let's assume that all the text files in the directory and its subdirectories have the same file extension - let's say .java.

P.S. My editor of choice is emacs.

Answer 1

If you don't want recursion into subdirectories, it's much simpler to do just this:

grep -lZ '.\{116\}' *.java | xargs -0 "${EDITOR:=emacs}"

If you need recursion into subdirectories, use the globstar option:

shopt -s globstar
grep -lZ '.\{116\}' **/*.java | xargs -0 "${EDITOR:=emacs}"

Answer 2

In a terminal, after changing to the directory in question, type:

find -name '*.java' -exec awk -vORS=$'\\0' 'length > 116 {print FILENAME; nextfile}' {} +|xargs -0 ${EDITOR:=emacs}

This will open all the .java files that have lines longer than 116 characters in a new instance of emacs - unless your EDITOR environment variable is set to the name of some other text editor, in which case it will open them in that instead.

Answer 3

Based on gniourf_gniourf's answer, here is a way that works within emacs, and allows you to jump directly to the overlong lines with TAB followed by RET:

M-x rgrep RET .\{116\} RET *.java RET [insert directory to scan here] RET