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Author Topic: Notepad replacement  (Read 179 times)

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Offline couttsj

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Notepad replacement
« on: October 30, 2009, 10:39:42 am »
I would like to thank DJanda and IH8U for responding, but I think I should probably be more descriptive of my needs.

I deal with 2 different types of text files, and the problems arise when I need to edit these files in order to import them into a database. The first is downloaded comma separated strings of data, which can sometimes be quite large (over 1MB). In some of these I have to search and replace CR/LF strings, and in some I have to insert CR/LF strings. Quite often, the date field has to be reformatted into an acceptable format. I do so wish the world could find a single date standard instead of this mish-mash that we have now. What does the date 09/08/07 mean? In Canada, it is Aug. 9, 2007. In the US, it is Sep. 8, 2007. The one that makes most sense is the International standard of Aug, 7, 2009. Why? Because it is in the biggest to smallest order like most other numbers, and consequently is very easy to sort. (rant over)

The second type of text file that I deal with are log files. Log files can also be quite large, and sometimes contain many lines of text and partial lines of text that need to be deleted. It would be a real timesaver if I had a text editor that could search for a particular string and delete the entire line that contains that string. What would also be handy is to be able to sort on text in the middle of a line, instead of just the beginning of the line. For text file sorting, I am now using the command line sort:
type abc.txt|sort>abcsorted.txt
which is quite fast but rather limited.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

J.A. Coutts
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Offline Black Viper

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Notepad replacement
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2009, 10:54:05 am »
Quote from: couttsj on October 30, 2009, 10:39:42 am
Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Well, I think it is slightly off topic from what was originally posted. :)
No worries, though.
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Offline couttsj

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Notepad replacement
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2009, 12:45:06 pm »
Quote from: Black Viper on October 30, 2009, 10:54:05 am
Well, I think it is slightly off topic from what was originally posted. :)
No worries, though.

No problem with me if you want to move this discussion to a new thread.

J.A. Coutts
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Offline DJanda

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Notepad replacement
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2009, 01:50:09 am »
Quote from: couttsj on October 30, 2009, 10:39:42 am
I deal with 2 different types of text files, and the problems arise when I need to edit these files in order to import them into a database. The first is downloaded comma separated strings of data, which can sometimes be quite large (over 1MB). In some of these I have to search and replace CR/LF strings, and in some I have to insert CR/LF strings. Quite often, the date field has to be reformatted into an acceptable format. I do so wish the world could find a single date standard instead of this mish-mash that we have now. What does the date 09/08/07 mean? In Canada, it is Aug. 9, 2007. In the US, it is Sep. 8, 2007. The one that makes most sense is the International standard of Aug, 7, 2009. Why? Because it is in the biggest to smallest order like most other numbers, and consequently is very easy to sort. (rant over)

The second type of text file that I deal with are log files. Log files can also be quite large, and sometimes contain many lines of text and partial lines of text that need to be deleted. It would be a real timesaver if I had a text editor that could search for a particular string and delete the entire line that contains that string. What would also be handy is to be able to sort on text in the middle of a line, instead of just the beginning of the line. For text file sorting, I am now using the command line sort:
type abc.txt|sort>abcsorted.txt
which is quite fast but rather limited.


For both types of files, I believe that PFE32 will work for you. It handles very large files (multiple megabytes) with no problem. As I mentioned before, it will search on control characters and replace with control characters. It also accepts rather large search strings and replaces them with large strings. The "search for a string and then delete the line" can be easily handled with the macro functions. In fact I believe that I have that macro in my library. (Yes, it has a library function to keep your macros.)

I have successfully used it to edit database files (it sees the special characters as the control characters that they actually are, so you have to be conversant with the control character set that is being used).

BTW, both PFE32 and ConTEXT are free.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2009, 01:57:39 am by DJanda »
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Offline Black Viper

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Re: Notepad replacement
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2009, 07:33:51 am »
Quote from: couttsj on October 30, 2009, 12:45:06 pm
No problem with me if you want to move this discussion to a new thread.

Done and thanks.
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Offline DJanda

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Re: Notepad replacement
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2009, 12:02:28 pm »
As an aside, ConTEXT has a handy feature to replace Notepad with ConTEXT.
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Offline couttsj

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Re: Notepad replacement
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2009, 08:46:29 pm »
Quote from: DJanda on October 31, 2009, 01:50:09 am
For both types of files, I believe that PFE32 will work for you.

Thanks for the info. PFE32 has been around for a long time. The latest Version I could find was 1.1.0.0 released in 1999. One of the strong points is that it does not require an install; just unzip the files to the install directory and add the links. I had to download the winhlp32.exe install file to get the older style help to function, but there are many useful functions and far less annoyances than with NotePad. One thing I did not care much for was the Tool Bar, but digging through the preference settings, I found I could disable it. Also, the global replace function is very slow on large files, but I can always revert back to NotePad for those cases where it becomes too painful.

All in all, I think I will be using PFE32 for pretty much most of my text editing. Thanks again.

J.A. Coutts
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Offline DJanda

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Re: Notepad replacement
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2009, 09:51:06 pm »
NP
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Offline gUiTaR_mIkE

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Re: Notepad replacement
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2009, 02:27:19 am »
I have read through this thread and the other one so I hope I'm not repeating an already mentioned app,
that being - http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm.

Notepad++ is free, regularly updated, you can unzip either the ASCII or Unicode version to a folder or run an
installer, there are a few additional plugins that ad functionality, and I do believe it runs fine in Windows 7.
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