How to Use Treesed

Go to the directory where you want to search or make changes.

There are two choices you can make when using treesed:

  1. Do I just want to search for a text, or do I want to search for a text and replace it with something else?
    If you are just searching you are using Treesed in "search mode", otherwise it is in "replace mode."
  2. Do I want to search/replace only in files in my current directory, or should files in all subdirectories (and all directories below that) also be done?
Some examples will make this clear.

Searching

Say you are faced with the situation that the author of a slew of web-pages, Nathan Brazil, has left and has been succeeded by Mavra Chang. First, let us see which files are affected by this (what you type in is shown in bold): 
[localhost] treesed "Nathan Brazil" -files *.html
search_pattern: Nathan\ Brazil
replacement_pattern: 

** Search mode

.
midnight.html: 1 lines on: 2
..
well.html: 1 lines on: 3
We notice the following:
  • The search text "Nathan Brazil" is enclosed in double-quotes (").
  • You specify which files to search with -files followed by a list of file names--in this case *.html.
  • Treesed reports the search pattern ("pattern" is just a fancy word for "text") you specified (you can ignore that \).
  • Treesed reports an empty replacement_pattern. This is correct, because you haven't entered one.
  • It therefore deduces that is is in search mode.
  • It finds two files containing "Nathan Brazil", and reports on which lines of these files it found it; it does not show the lines themselves.
Because you used -files, Treesed will search in the files you specify in the current directory. You can also search files in the current directory and all directories below it. However, in that case you can not specify which file names to use, all files will be searched: 
[localhost] treesed "Nathan Brazil" -tree
search_pattern: Nathan\ Brazil
replacement_pattern: 

** Search mode

.
midnight.html: 1 lines on: 2
...
well.html: 1 lines on: 3
.
new/echoes.html: 1 lines on: 2
We notice the following:
  • Instead of -files we now see -tree.
  • We do not see a specification of file names.
  • Treesed finds an occurence of "Nathan Brazil" in the file echoes.html in the subdirectory new; it did not find this file in the previous example (as it shouldn't).

Replacing

To replace a text you simply add the replacement text right after the search text: 
[localhost] treesed "Nathan Brazil" "Mavra Change" -files *.html
search_pattern: Nathan\ Brazil
replacement_pattern: Mavra Chang

** EDIT MODE!

.
midnight.html: 1 lines on: 2

Replaced Nathan\ Brazil by Mavra Chang on 1 lines in midnight.html
..
well.html: 1 lines on: 3

Replaced Nathan\ Brazil by Mavra Chang on 1 lines in well.html
We notice the following:
  • Right after the search text "Nathan Brazil" you specify the replacement text "Mavra Chang".
  • As a result, Treesed now reports a non-empty replacement_pattern.
  • Hence it concludes it is in "edit mode", which means replacment mode.
  • Treesed dutifully reports on which lines in which files it did the replacement.
To replace a text in all files in the current directory and the ones below it, we do the following: 
[localhost] treesed "Nathan Brazil" "Mavra Chang" -tree
search_pattern: Nathan\ Brazil
replacement_pattern: Mavra Chang

** EDIT MODE!

.
midnight.html: 1 lines on: 2

Replaced Nathan\ Brazil by Mavra Chang on 1 lines in midnight.html

....
well.html: 1 lines on: 3

Replaced Nathan\ Brazil by Mavra Chang on 1 lines in well.html
.
new/echoes.html: 1 lines on: 2

Replaced Nathan\ Brazil by Mavra Chang on 1 lines in new/echoes.html
and we get the expected results, including the replace in new/echoes.html.

Old Versions

Treesed leaves behind quite a mess of old versions of the files it changed (only in change-mode, of course). These old files have the same name as the original file, with .ddddd appended to it. For example, if treesed makes a change to midnight.html it will leave the original version as something like midnight.html.26299. You'll have to remove these files lest your disk area clutters up. Here is a command that does that, but beware! This command removes all files in the current directory and all below it, that end in a period followed by one or more digits: 
find . -name "*.[0-9]*" -exec rm {} \;
It is interesting to note that if you use treesed again without cleaning up, you may get files like midnight.html.26299.27654. These will also be cleaned up by the above slightly dangerous command.

About Treesed

treesed is public domain software developed and designed by Rick Jansen from Sara, Amsterdam, Netherlands, January 1996.

About This Document

This usage document was created by the Division of Information Technology Services at The University of Western Ontario.