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Full Discussion: Perl find & replace - what am I doing wrong?
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Perl find & replace - what am I doing wrong? Post 302814389 by sudon't on Wednesday 29th of May 2013 11:25:03 AM
Old 05-29-2013
Perl find & replace - what am I doing wrong?
Hi!
I have a directory full of .plist type files from which I need to delete a line. Not every file contains the line, but of course I'd like to do it recursively. The line which I want to delete is:

Code:
		<string>com.apple.PhotoBooth</string>

and looks like this in its native habitat:

Code:
	<string>748 352 640 526 0 0 1440 878 </string>
	<key>excludedHosts</key>
	<array>
		<string>com.apple.PhotoBooth</string>
		<string>com.apple.iChat</string>
	</array>
	<key>frameworkVersion</key>

Here is what I tried, as well as the error which followed:

Code:
$ perl -pi -e ~/Library/Compositions/Compound\ Eye.qtz 's/<string>com.apple.PhotoBooth</string>\n//g' 
Bareword found where operator expected at -e line 1, near "/Users/rick"
	(Missing operator before rick?)
syntax error at -e line 1, near "/Users/rick"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

The interesting thing (to me) is that it seems to be complaining about syntax in the actual directory - /Users/Rick - but I used the abbreviated form - ~/
I didn't really understand what it was complaining about, so I combined all the flags and got a different error.

Code:
$ perl -pie ~/Library/Compositions/Compound\ Eye.qtz 's/<string>com.apple.PhotoBooth</string>\n//g' 
Unrecognized character \xDA; marked by <-- HERE after bplist00<-- HERE near column 9 at ~Library/Compositions/Compound Eye.qtz line 1.

I searched for the string "bplist00" in the file, but cannot find it. I also don't understand why it's talking about columns. I can't make heads or tails of this error. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'll attach one of the files, if that helps.

I'm using Mac OS 10.6.8
bash
Compound Eye.qtz.zip (5.4 KB) 
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

vidir

VIDIR(1)																  VIDIR(1)

NAME

       vidir - edit directory

SYNOPSIS

       vidir [--verbose] [directory|file|-] ...

DESCRIPTION

       vidir allows editing of the contents of a directory in a text editor. If no directory is specified, the current directory is edited.

       When editing a directory, each item in the directory will appear on its own numbered line. These numbers are how vidir keeps track of what
       items are changed. Delete lines to remove files from the directory, or edit filenames to rename files. You can also switch pairs of numbers
       to swap filenames.

       Note that if "-" is specified as the directory to edit, it reads a list of filenames from stdin and displays those for editing.
       Alternatively, a list of files can be specified on the command line.

OPTIONS

       -v, --verbose
	   Verbosely display the actions taken by the program.

EXAMPLES

       vidir
       vidir *.jpeg
	   Typical uses.

       find | vidir -
	   Edit subdirectory contents too. To delete subdirectories, delete all their contents and the subdirectory itself in the editor.

       find -type f | vidir -
	   Edit all files under the current directory and subdirectories.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       EDITOR
	   Editor to use.

       VISUAL
	   Also supported to determine what editor to use.

AUTHOR

       Copyright 2006 by Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>

       Licensed under the GNU GPL.

moreutils							    2010-04-28								  VIDIR(1)
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