git-filter-branch to remove strings, but where strings contain $ ' \ and other characters

Question

I\'m trying to rewrite history, using:

git filter-branch --tree-filter \'git ls-files -z \"*.php\" |xargs -0 perl -p -i -e \"s#(PASSWORD1|PASSWORD2|PASSWORD3)#

Answer 1

Using a wrapper script:

#!/bin/bash

readarray -t PASSWORDS < list_file

REPLACEMENT='xXxXxXxXxXx'
SEP=$'\xFF'

EXPR=${PASSWORDS[0]}
for (( I = 1; I < ${#PASSWORDS[@]}; ++I )); do
    EXPR+="|${PASSWORDS[I]}"
done
EXPR="s${SEP}(${EXPR})${SEP}$REPLACEMENT${SEP}g"
EXPR=${EXPR//'\'/'\\\\'}; EXPR=${EXPR//'$'/'\\\$'}
EXPR=${EXPR//'"'/'\"'};   EXPR=${EXPR//'`','\`'}
EXPR=${EXPR//'^','\\^'};  EXPR=${EXPR//'[','\\['}
EXPR=${EXPR//']','\\]'};  EXPR=${EXPR//'+','\\+'}
EXPR=${EXPR//'?','\\?'};  EXPR=${EXPR//'.','\\.'}
EXPR=${EXPR//'*','\\*'};  EXPR=${EXPR//'{','\\{'}
EXPR=${EXPR//'}','\\}'};  EXPR=${EXPR//'(','\\('}
EXPR=${EXPR//')','\\)'}

FILTER="git ls-files -z '*.php' | xargs -0 perl -p -i -e \"$EXPR\""

echo "Number of passwords: ${#PASSWORDS[@]}"    
echo "Passwords:" "${PASSWORDS[@]}"
echo "EXPR: $EXPR"
echo "FILTER: $FILTER"

git filter-branch --tree-filter "$FILTER" -- --all