How to replace strings including `.` (dot) as first character using dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace

Question

(defun my-find-orgfiles ()
  (interactive)
  (find-name-dired "." "*py"))

(global-set-key (kbd "M-n") 'my-find-orgfiles)

Than, t to toggle marked/unmarked files (thus marking them all, since none were marked). Then I use Q to use query-replace on the marked files. And enter .value to replace with value.

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=> What am I trying to do? Replace a string that is starting or ending with . (dot) such as: .value or value..

=> What happens instead? During replacement Emacs also finds text such as (value, [space]value, [value and so on. In other words, .value is matching any character followed by value.

=> How can I force dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace (bound to Q in Dired buffers) to look for a literal . during string replacement?

Answer 1

This really has nothing to do with find-name-dired.

This is about Q in Dired buffers (including from find-name-dired).

Q is dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace. That command treats your first input pattern as a regexp. And . in a regexp matches any character except newline.

What you want to use, instead of .value, is [.]value. That is, you want a pattern that matches only a . character.