"perl -p -i -e" trick in Python?

[Wonjae Lee]

I read the comment of
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/277753.
(Title : Find and replace string in all files in a directory)

"perl -p -i -e 's/change this/..to this/g'" trick looks handy.
Does Python have a similar trick? Or, is there a shorter Python recipe for
the given problem?