Simple coding help

[BlueStar]

So I'm trying to find a really quick way of doing some basic text replacement, without having to open Word or Excel.  Basically I need to add a blank line between each row and a symbol and space to the start of each row.  So input:

 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

consectetur adipiscing elit

sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt

 

Output

 

$ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

 

$ consectetur adipiscing elit

 

$ sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt

 

I've managed to make a batch file that points to a vbs file and can replace one word with another.

 

VBS code:

 

 

Const ForReading = 1   

Const ForWriting = 2

 

strFileName = Wscript.Arguments(0)

strOldText = Wscript.Arguments(1)

strNewText = Wscript.Arguments(2)

 

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForReading)

strText = objFile.ReadAll

objFile.Close

 

strNewText = Replace(strText, strOldText, strNewText)

Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForWriting)

objFile.Write strNewText  'WriteLine adds extra CR/LF

objFile.Close

 

 

Batch code:

 

cscript replace.vbs "F:\test.txt" "Lorem" "Dorem"

 

So if I save the input text to test.txt, it'll replace Lorem with Dorem and that works.  But what I need to do is replace "(carriage return)" with "(carriage return)(carriage return)$(space)" and I can't seem to find a syntax to do that.  Is it even possible with this method, or am I barking up the wrong tree and need to look at java or python or something?

[thomas]

probably instead of objFile.ReadAll you need to do something like ReadLine - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15533214/how-do-i-read-a-file-line-by-line-in-vb-script

 

[pre]

filename = "C:\Temp\vblist.txt"

outfilename = "C:\Temp\vbOut.txt"

 

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set fs2 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set f = fso.OpenTextFile(filename)

set outFile = fso.OpenTextFile(outputfilename)

 

Do Until f.AtEndOfStream ' read until end of file of input file

  currentLine = f.ReadLine ' grab single line

  ' do your string replacement here ?

  currentLine = "$ " + currentLine ' prepend the $

  outFile.Write(currentLine) ' write it out

  outFile.Write($CHR(10)) ' or CHR(12) or however you manually output a carriage return/line feed.

  ' and then loop

Loop

[/pre]

 

apologies if apostrophes aren't still comments in VBS, I'm going off my old VB days.

[BlueStar]

Aha, this is very useful, thanks!  I'm getting an error for the ($CHR(10)) or 12, saying invalid character, so I cant quite work out what it should be.

[Troll]

Python was made for this kind of thing.

 

[pre]

filepath = "lorem.txt"

newfile = "lorem_new.txt"

prefix = "$ "

 

with open(filepath) as fp:

    lines = fp.read().splitlines()

 

with open(filepath, "w") as fp:

    for line in lines:

        print(prefix + line + "\n", file=fp)

        [/pre]

 

[thomas]

Look at this noob depending on the language to close his file handles. Booo. Boo I say. Down with python. I don’t respect a language that respects white space.

 

Edit: I am actually, IRL, vehemently anti python.

[Troll]

You can filepath.open() and filepath.close(), but with is easier.

 

I bet you like Perl.

[thomas]

perl is fucking gorgeous tbh. made my first monies professionally programming in it.

 

but these days I'm node/react/angular and c# and life is dumb+good.

[Troll]

perl is fucking gorgeous tbh. made my first monies professionally programming in it.

 

but these days I'm node/react/angular and c# and life is dumb+good.

 

I like C#, but nothing beats Python for DNA analysis, which is essentially working with enormous text files. 

 

Hope we can agree that R is the fucking devil though.

[thomas]

All I know of R is microsoft early signaling that it was going to be their "big data" standard a few years ago when they purchased some big R firm. Thankfully never had to do anything with it. looks like shit if the code examples out there are anything to go by

[SEMTEX]

We have bio-statisticians at work that repeatedly INSIST something is wrong with the server they're working on when it freezes up. Without a shadow of a doubt, the issue is with their code in R/SAS. Every single god damn time.

 

Also why are biostatisticians the least computer savvy people in the world? They're computer fucking programmers and they can't do shit.

 

Anyway, back to Help.

[BlueStar]

Cheers, I'll have a go with that python script!

[neesy111]

C# is my main language.  Also know VB, Java, JS and a few others.

[BlueStar]

Been looking at this again after Christmas and come to the conclusion I'm a bit out of my depth. Made a few small changes (swapped the $ symbol for a #, changed the txt files to input.txt and output.txt), downloaded a portable version of python and I'm running the script with a command Python\App\Python script.py, which doesn't give an error but nothing seems to happen.  Was kinda hoping there was an easy way to turn a script into a windows executable but that seems a rather complex task.  Have looked at setting up a a macro in Word or Excel, but I'd like other people to be able to use it and seeing as in the 90s people spread viruses and worms with office macros it's pretty impossible to share them easily.

[relámpago blanco]

Been looking at this again after Christmas and come to the conclusion I'm a bit out of my depth. Made a few small changes (swapped the $ symbol for a #, changed the txt files to input.txt and output.txt), downloaded a portable version of python and I'm running the script with a command Python\App\Python script.py, which doesn't give an error but nothing seems to happen.  Was kinda hoping there was an easy way to turn a script into a windows executable but that seems a rather complex task.  Have looked at setting up a a macro in Word or Excel, but I'd like other people to be able to use it and seeing as in the 90s people spread viruses and worms with office macros it's pretty impossible to share them easily.

Easiest way is to do it in c# and make it a console app.  Visual Studio Community Edition is free.

[BlueStar]

Aha, I'll have a look into that. Cheers

[relámpago blanco]

Aha, I'll have a look into that. Cheers

PM me if you have any problems.  It's probably a 5 minute job to write max.

[neesy111]

Yeah, I can help as well if needed.