Replace Content
replace_contentReplace text patterns in files using literal or regex matching to modify content efficiently in Serena's coding environment.
Instructions
Replaces one or more occurrences of a given pattern in a file with new content.
This is the preferred way to replace content in a file whenever the symbol-level tools are not appropriate.
VERY IMPORTANT: The "regex" mode allows very large sections of code to be replaced without fully quoting them!
Use a regex of the form "beginning.*?end-of-text-to-be-replaced" to be faster and more economical!
ALWAYS try to use wildcards to avoid specifying the exact content to be replaced,
especially if it spans several lines. Note that you cannot make mistakes, because if the regex should match
multiple occurrences while you disabled allow_multiple_occurrences, an error will be returned, and you can retry
with a revised regex.
Therefore, using regex mode with suitable wildcards is usually the best choice!.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| relative_path | Yes | The relative path to the file. | |
| needle | Yes | The string or regex pattern to search for. If `mode` is "literal", this string will be matched exactly. If `mode` is "regex", this string will be treated as a regular expression (syntax of Python's `re` module, with flags DOTALL and MULTILINE enabled). | |
| repl | Yes | The replacement string (verbatim). If mode is "regex", the string can contain backreferences to matched groups in the needle regex, specified using the syntax $!1, $!2, etc. for groups 1, 2, etc. | |
| mode | Yes | Either "literal" or "regex", specifying how the `needle` parameter is to be interpreted. | |
| allow_multiple_occurrences | No | If True, the regex may match multiple occurrences in the file and all of them will be replaced. If this is set to False and the regex matches multiple occurrences, an error will be returned (and you may retry with a revised, more specific regex). |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| result | Yes |