ReplaceIt : Simple but effective text file string replacement tool
- Inspiration
I needed a tool to make my life easier when it came to writing install scripts for various different OS's and Distributions of OS's. One of the biggest troubles is making alterations to existing text configuration files.
I was too lazy to work out how to mix grep, sed, awk head tail and any other "normal" unix type tools to combine to attain the required effect. I also wanted it to be a BSD-type licence as I believe in it.
So, in a couple of hours (it took longer to write these documents than replaceit!!) I created ReplaceIt.
Enjoy.
- Licence
BSD-type
- Limitations
Currently (version 1.0.0) only replaces one instance per line.
- Usage
(see the output from running ./replaceit for more details)
ReplaceIt has three compulsorary parameters, along followed by zero or more optional "rule-tokens". Each rule token consists of an optional modifier character [+,-,{,}] and a string.
The meaning of the optional modifier character is as follows:
+ : Ignore this char and consider the rest of the string
literally. (we use this if we want to have a '-'
in our string as the first char, ie, "+-option"
- : The string following must NOT be present on the line
} : The string following must appear AFTER the string to be
replaced.
{ : The string following must appear BEFORE the string to be
replaced.
- Contact
You may contact me with the following details regarding bugs, feature updates, questions etc.
Email: pldaniels@pldaniels.com
IRC: inflex, irc.freshmeat.net, #xamime
AOL: Screen-name "cinflex"
ICQ: 103642862
WWW: http://pldaniels.com
- Examples
./replaceit --input=myfile "replace" "with-this"
Will replace the first occurance of "replace" with "with-this" (no quotes) in every line of the file "myfile".
./replaceit --input=myfile "replace" "with-this" "has this"
Will replace "replace" with "with-this" only if the line also has the string "has this" in it.
./replaceit --input=file "rep" "with" "has this" "-not this"
Will replace "rep" with "with" if the line has "has this" but NOT "not this" in it.
./replaceit --input=file "rep" "with" "+-something" "{extra"
Will replace "rep" with "with" if the line has the string "-something" in it, and the string "extra" appears BEFORE the string "rep".
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