Locate and edit text files

[_Bob_]

Ok a reques to the scripting gurus...

I want to search a folder tree for all instances of a given text file, say 'user.txt' and append a couple of lines to it.

I'm requesting a script though perhaps there's a application out there with this kind of function?

TIA

[ico2]

in linux/unix, this will work

 

for file in `find|grep user.txt`; do

echo "whatever" >> $file

done

[_Bob_]

Geoff you have been usurped!

[ico2]

btw: you may wish to change it to user.txt$ rather than user.txt, that way it wont care if for some reason you have a dir named user.txt, or, as . matches any charachter in regexs, if you had a dir named userFtxt

[ico2]

also, a more elegant soloution might be to use `find -name user.txt` instead of `find |grep user.txt`

 

Just correcting my own suggestion again

[NetworkGeezer]

In Windows, how about

 

for /f %f in (' dir /s /b user.txt') do @echo whatever >> %f

 

or

 

for /f %f in (' dir /s /b user.txt') do type addendum.txt >> %f

[_Bob_]

Geezer,

Cheers that almost works. The slight problem is that some of the files returned in %f have a space in their path which stops it doing the append.

[NetworkGeezer]

Geezer,

Cheers that almost works. The slight problem is that some of the files returned in %f have a space in their path which stops it doing the append.

 

just put quotes around it like so

 

for /f %f in (' dir /s /b user.txt') do type addendum.txt >> "%f "

[ChrisH]

I think you need to put the file name in some kind of quotes or double quotes to get the dos cmd line to work. If not then the equivalent vbscript would be several lines but would cope with the space I will post code later if you havent got it sorted.

[_Bob_]

Doh! Doesn't work even with quotes.

Even

for /f %f in (' dir /s /b prefs.js') do echo "%f "

gives a mangled list, so the spaces are messing it up as soon as it is stored in the %f variable. I gave up and piped the output of the dir /s /b user.txt command to text file and did it in two stages.

Linux users i bow to your technically superior command shell.

[CyberNerd]

Linux users i bow to your technically superior command shell

 

lol - you could install cygwin and get a *nix command shell on your windows box

 

http://www.cygwin.com/

[NetworkGeezer]

Doh! Doesn't work even with quotes.

Even

for /f %f in (' dir /s /b prefs.js') do echo "%f "

gives a mangled list, so the spaces are messing it up as soon as it is stored in the %f variable. I gave up and piped the output of the dir /s /b user.txt command to text file and did it in two stages.

Linux users i bow to your technically superior command shell.

 

Sorry forgot, spaces and tabs are used as delimeter characters by default.

Have to try something like this

 

for /f "delims=?" %f in (' dir /s /b prefs.js') do @echo "%f"

 

On the basis that ? will never be part of a valid filename.

[bossman]

Why ammend why not create user.txt with every line in place how u want it and then just run a batch script or vb script to copy it into the dir tree, or am i being too plain and stupid and you require to do something else.

 

sorry if this does not help

[_Bob_]

Ah will have to remember the delims bit. I didnt realise you could change delimiters. What i have basically done is added a line to every users' prefs.js file in their firefox profile. I didn't want to overwrite them and kill any existing preferences they may have set. It's all sorted now but i have a feeling i may be doing this again in the future so i'll kepp hold of the code.

[NetworkGeezer]

The delims bit is useful for processing CSV files so that you can assign different fields to different variables:

 

for /f "tokens=1,5 delims,"  %n in (somefile.csv) @echo name: %n age: %m

 

You can find out more by typing for /?

 

There is a slight gotcha in that it's %n on the command line but %%n in a batch file.