UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I had a doubt regarding how the file size changes and needed some advice on the same


So I have this file say abc.txt.. Size was 10000. Now inside the file when I go and I replace all the number 7 numerals with number 4 file size changed to 9984. Any idea why and how ??

replacing a single character with another will not change the size.
Check if you are removing spaces / new line characters

Not replacing any space. This is the command I use

Code:

%s/20140707/20140704/g

why dont you do the below.
If the original file is file1.txt of 10000 size, make a copy of it, do the changes and if you see the size is different, do a diff

Which program do you use to issue this command? If it is inside a "vi" session your editor might be configured to replace 8 consecutive spaces with a single tab character. Another possibility is that the file contains some control characters and the program you use to edit the file filters them out.

Copy the file before the editing session, edit it and then run a

Code:

diff /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2

to see the differences. This might give you at least an idea what happened.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Well diff wouldn't be of much help, because it would show me more than 1000 differences in the dates I replaced

So you would have more than 1000 hints on what going on/wrong!

Do it on a smaller file, and analyze step by step.