Re: How do Unix grep, find, sort?
From: Roger Abell (mvpNOSpam_at_asu.edu)
Date: 02/27/05
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- In reply to: noleander: "How do Unix grep, find, sort?"
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Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:25:56 -0700
Unix find is so highly evolved one could actually consider it a
little library of routines invocable on switch. I recall back around
1996 after starting Windows admin after many years in Unix, asking
some MS folks where was the "find" utility. They just said, "find,
we have find" - a total disconnect in meaning which I attempted to
clarify but finally gave up.
You can load the Unix tools, either from third-parties, or look for
Services For Unix (SFU) from MS (they did have a free offer some
time back). That will get you going in the ways you are used to,
with find piped to, with the *greps, etc..
Some of the ability exists with the old commandline syntax, which
is actually a legacy from DOS. If you are like me you will find it
rather arcaine, limited, and systactically ugly.
You may be interested in the next generation command shell MSH,
which is in a somewhat open beta at this time - it is (more than)
something of a hybrid of the best features of most all previous shell
languages in all OSs - at least that is (one of) the objectives. However,
its piping capability is much more powerful as one passses objects
down the pipe . . .
OK, keeping with the initial comment, that find is really a little
library, you will have to do some things by evolving your own
little set of vbs scripts.
In your exampled case you might write a routine the does the
replace in file, pretty much
getargs -> file, search sting, replace string
open file, open temp file
per infile line use replace function
close files and replace old with new
locate file, calling replace, pretty much
get handle to folder
for each file in folder
test age (based on create, access, or modify timedate)
invoke the replace routine
for each folder, recurse if desired
Now, you can design these so that they are
reusable, and you can package them into script
componnets and reference them from a very short
driver vhs that you write as a one-off on need.
You could also inline the replace into one script
and it would be rather short, but then you are in the
ball game of reversioning for the next different need
(something I find myself doing too much).
But that is all down the road from where you are right
now, and you will not find a single library of such script
components that has evolved within the community (which
is how we evolved find, the grep's, lex/yak, etc.)
Right now it is still much a roll your own world, in Windows
although with a lot of code sharing by way of examples and
also of so-and-so's library, etc..
So getting the Interx portion of the SFU loaded may be the
way for you to get immediately productive (not to mention
having vi, etc. available).
However, do go down the road with some script language.
You will find it is extremely powerful in Windows - much
more so than any shell language in Unix - if only because of
the ability to instance just about anything and make use of
its methods.
Oh yea, do check out MSH.
-- Roger Abell Microsoft MVP (Windows Security) MCSE (W2k3,W2k,Nt4) MCDBA "noleander" <noleander@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:55BCEEA9-01A9-4D10-AA5B-E7F1C21095D8@microsoft.com... > Hi. I'm new to Windows, after programming for 20 years in Unix. I'm willing > to give Windows a fair shot, but I'm having a heck of a time getting started. > Here is a typical thing I'll need to do: > > *** Find all text files that are less than one month old (under a given > folder) and within those files replace all occurances of string "xyz" with > string "abc". > > I'm used to the Unix approach, piping commands like grep, find, and ex > together. > > But I've been studying VBScript all day, and I swear I cannot figure out how > to do the above task. > > My question is: What is the normal scripting approach in Windows to > accomplish the task I describe above? Pointers to sample code would be much > appreciated! > > neal >
- Previous message: Al Dunbar [MS-MVP]: "Re: Copying files based on date during logon"
- In reply to: noleander: "How do Unix grep, find, sort?"
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