---
title: "How to use Regex with WP CLI to Search & Replace WordPress Database"
date: 2019-10-20
author: "Shiv"
featured_image: "https://malcure.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-cli-db-search-replace-regex-1-scaled.jpg"
categories:
  - name: "Code, CLI & Utilities"
    url: "/blog/utilities.md"
---

# How to use Regex with WP CLI to Search & Replace WordPress Database

![WP CLI database search replace regex](https://malcure.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-cli-db-search-replace-regex-1-1024x682.jpg)WP CLI is the command-line tool of choice when it comes to managing and administering tasks within WordPress. Combined with the power of regex (a sequence of characters defining a search pattern), it enables powerful search and replace functions.

WP CLI documentation on executing a search and replace on the database using regex can be confusing. Here’s a one liner that works and can eliminate some confusion. Feel free to tweak and play (on a sandbox install).

## Why Choose WP CLI For Search & Replace?

1. **Data-Integrity:** Data within the WordPress database is serialized. Altering this data will break the database integrity.
2. **Serialized Data:** WP CLI deserialization the data before altering it and serializes it again before saving it.
3. **Efficiency:** Enables quick, efficient and precise operations.
4. **Flexibility:** Tailors search-patterns to specific needs.
5. **Safety:** Dry-Run allows you to test commands and gives verbose output before you decide to commit.

## Prerequisites for Utilizing WP CLI & Regular Expressions

Before embarking on this task, you must ensure access to a WordPress installation and WP CLI. It is safer to perform these operations on a sandbox install to mitigate risks. See also: [Download WP CLI Temporarily & Using With Custom PHP Versions](https://malcure.com/blog/utilities/download-wp-cli-for-temporary-use-also-run-against-custom-php-version/)

You also need to have some understanding of [Regular Expressions](https://www.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.syntax.php).

Do not forget to replace the regex with your own.

This is the first thing you should try before trying something [crude like replacing via PHP](https://malcure.com/blog/utilities/removing-malware-from-large-database-dumps/).

```
wp search-replace '<script.*?217bc9f0d28b2da070\.js.*?<\/script>' '' --all-tables --dry-run --report-changed-only --precise --regex --regex-delimiter='/'
```

### Breakdown of What WP CLI Search Replace Command

**–all-tables** runs the search-replace on all WordPress tables in the database.  
**–dry-run** only shows what will be changed without actually changing anything.  
**–report-changed-only** reports changed fields only.  
**–precise** forces the use of PHP (instead of SQL) which is more thorough, but slower.  
**–regex** tells WP CLI to search using the regular-expression we provided.  
**–regex-delimiter** sets the regular-expression delimiter to ‘/’ which is the standard way of using regular-expressions in PHP.

## Safety With WP CLI &amp; Regex

- **Dry Run**: Utilize the `--dry-run` option.
- **Backup**: Do a quick database backup with `wp db export`.
- **Understanding**: You can use online tools like RegExr [3](#regexr) to understand your regex pattern.

### Bonus:

Additionally, you can also pass PCRE modifiers to regex search-replace (e.g. ‘i’ for case-insensitivity) using the syntax: `[--regex-flags=]`.

Did you know you can deploy Malcure Advanced Edition en-mass? Check this: [Deploying Malcure Advanced Edition With Cron, WP-CLI for Automatic Periodic Scans](https://malcure.com/malware-removal-plugin/deploy-malcure-web-hosting-cli-cron-automation/)

### References:

1. [WP CLI Search Replace Command](https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/search-replace/)
2. [WP CLI](https://wp-cli.org/)
3. [RegExr](https://regexr.com/) [^](#c-regexr)