NAME¶
fileutil - Procedures implementing some file utilities
SYNOPSIS¶
package require
Tcl 8
package require
fileutil ?1.14.4?
::fileutil::lexnormalize path
::fileutil::fullnormalize path
::fileutil::test path codes ?
msgvar? ?
label?
::fileutil::cat (?
options?
file)...
::fileutil::writeFile ?
options?
file data
::fileutil::appendToFile ?
options?
file data
::fileutil::insertIntoFile ?
options?
file at
data
::fileutil::removeFromFile ?
options?
file at
n
::fileutil::replaceInFile ?
options?
file at n
data
::fileutil::updateInPlace ?
options?
file cmd
::fileutil::fileType filename
::fileutil::find ?
basedir ?
filtercmd??
::fileutil::findByPattern basedir ?
-regexp|
-glob?
?
--?
patterns
::fileutil::foreachLine var filename cmd
::fileutil::grep pattern ?
files?
::fileutil::install ?
-m mode?
source
destination
::fileutil::stripN path n
::fileutil::stripPwd path
::fileutil::stripPath prefix path
::fileutil::jail jail path
::fileutil::touch ?
-a? ?
-c? ?
-m? ?
-r
ref_file? ?
-t time?
filename ?
...?
::fileutil::tempdir
::fileutil::tempdir path
::fileutil::tempdirReset
::fileutil::tempfile ?
prefix?
::fileutil::relative base dst
::fileutil::relativeUrl base dst
DESCRIPTION¶
This package provides implementations of standard unix utilities.
- ::fileutil::lexnormalize path
- This command performs purely lexical normalization on the
path and returns the changed path as its result. Symbolic links in
the path are not resolved.
Examples:
fileutil::lexnormalize /foo/./bar
=> /foo/bar
fileutil::lexnormalize /foo/../bar
=> /bar
- ::fileutil::fullnormalize path
- This command resolves all symbolic links in the path
and returns the changed path as its result. In contrast to the builtin
file normalize this command resolves a symbolic link in the last
element of the path as well.
- ::fileutil::test path codes
?msgvar? ? label?
- A command for the testing of several properties of a
path. The properties to test for are specified in codes,
either as a list of keywords describing the properties, or as a string
where each letter is a shorthand for a property to test. The recognized
keywords, shorthands, and associated properties are shown in the list
below. The tests are executed in the order given to the command.
The result of the command is a boolean value. It will be true if and only if
the path passes all the specified tests. In the case of the
path not passing one or more test the first failing test will leave
a message in the variable referenced by msgvar, if such is
specified. The message will be prefixed with label, if it is
specified. Note that the variabled referenced by msgvar is
not touched at all if all the tests pass.
- read
- file readable
- write
- file writable
- exists
- file exists
- exec
- file executable
- file
- file isfile
- dir
- file isdirectory
- ::fileutil::cat (?options?
file)...
- A tcl implementation of the UNIX cat command.
Returns the contents of the specified file(s). The arguments are files to
read, with interspersed options configuring the process. If there are
problems reading any of the files, an error will occur, and no data will
be returned.
The options accepted are -encoding, -translation,
-eofchar, and --. With the exception of the last all options
take a single value as argument, as specified by the tcl builtin command
fconfigure. The -- has to be used to terminate option
processing before a file if that file's name begins with a dash.
Each file can have its own set of options coming before it, and for anything
not specified directly the defaults are inherited from the options of the
previous file. The first file inherits the system default for unspecified
options.
- ::fileutil::writeFile ?options? file
data
- The command replaces the current contents of the specified
file with data, with the process configured by the options.
The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat. The
specification of a non-existent file is legal and causes the command to
create the file (and all required but missing directories).
- ::fileutil::appendToFile ?options?
file data
- This command is like ::fileutil::writeFile, except
that the previous contents of file are not replaced, but appended
to. The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat
- ::fileutil::insertIntoFile ?options?
file at data
- This comment is similar to ::fileutil::appendToFile,
except that the new data is not appended at the end, but inserted at a
specified location within the file. In further contrast this command has
to be given the path to an existing file. It will not create a missing
file, but throw an error instead.
The specified location at has to be an integer number in the range
0 ... [file size file]. 0 will cause insertion of the
new data before the first character of the existing content, whereas [file
size file] causes insertion after the last character of the
existing content, i.e. appending.
The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat.
- ::fileutil::removeFromFile ?options?
file at n
- This command is the complement to
::fileutil::insertIntoFile, removing n characters from the
file, starting at location at. The specified location
at has to be an integer number in the range 0 ... [file size
file] - n. 0 will cause the removal of the new data
to start with the first character of the existing content, whereas [file
size file] - n causes the removal of the tail of the
existing content, i.e. the truncation of the file.
The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat.
- ::fileutil::replaceInFile ?options?
file at n data
- This command is a combination of
::fileutil::removeFromFile and ::fileutil::insertIntoFile.
It first removes the part of the contents specified by the arguments
at and n, and then inserts data at the given
location, effectively replacing the removed by content with data.
All constraints imposed on at and n by
::fileutil::removeFromFile and ::fileutil::insertIntoFile
are obeyed.
The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat.
- ::fileutil::updateInPlace ?options?
file cmd
- This command can be seen as the generic core functionality
of ::fileutil::replaceInFile. It first reads the contents of the
specified file, then runs the command prefix cmd with that
data appended to it, and at last writes the result of that invokation back
as the new contents of the file.
If the executed command throws an error the file is not changed.
The command accepts the same options as ::fileutil::cat.
- ::fileutil::fileType filename
- An implementation of the UNIX file command, which
uses various heuristics to guess the type of a file. Returns a list
specifying as much type information as can be determined about the file,
from most general (eg, "binary" or "text") to most
specific (eg, "gif"). For example, the return value for a GIF
file would be "binary graphic gif". The command will detect the
following types of files: directory, empty, binary, text, script (with
interpreter), executable elf, executable dos, executable ne, executable
pe, graphic gif, graphic jpeg, graphic png, graphic tiff, graphic bitmap,
html, xml (with doctype if available), message pgp, binary pdf, text ps,
text eps, binary gravity_wave_data_frame, compressed bzip, compressed
gzip, compressed zip, compressed tar, audio wave, audio mpeg, and link. It
further detects doctools, doctoc, and docidx documentation files, and
tklib diagrams.
- ::fileutil::find ?basedir
?filtercmd??
- An implementation of the unix command find. Adapted
from the Tcler's Wiki. Takes at most two arguments, the path to the
directory to start searching from and a command to use to evaluate
interest in each file. The path defaults to " .", i.e.
the current directory. The command defaults to the empty string, which
means that all files are of interest. The command takes care not to
lose itself in infinite loops upon encountering circular link structures.
The result of the command is a list containing the paths to the
interesting files.
The filtercmd, if specified, is interpreted as a command prefix and
one argument is added to it, the name of the file or directory find is
currently looking at. Note that this name is not fully qualified.
It has to be joined it with the result of pwd to get an absolute
filename.
The result of filtercmd is a boolean value that indicates if the
current file should be included in the list of interesting files.
Example:
# find .tcl files
package require fileutil
proc is_tcl {name} {return [string match *.tcl $name]}
set tcl_files [fileutil::find . is_tcl]
- ::fileutil::findByPattern basedir
?-regexp| -glob? ?--? patterns
- This command is based upon the TclX command
recursive_glob, except that it doesn't allow recursion over more
than one directory at a time. It uses ::fileutil::find internally
and is thus able to and does follow symbolic links, something the
TclX command does not do. First argument is the directory to start
the search in, second argument is a list of patterns. The command
returns a list of all files reachable through basedir whose names
match at least one of the patterns. The options before the pattern-list
determine the style of matching, either regexp or glob. glob-style
matching is the default if no options are given. Usage of the option
-- stops option processing. This allows the use of a leading '-' in
the patterns.
- ::fileutil::foreachLine var filename cmd
- The command reads the file filename and executes the
script cmd for every line in the file. During the execution of the
script the variable var is set to the contents of the current line.
The return value of this command is the result of the last invocation of
the script cmd or the empty string if the file was empty.
- ::fileutil::grep pattern ?files?
- Implementation of grep. Adapted from the Tcler's
Wiki. The first argument defines the pattern to search for. This is
followed by a list of files to search through. The list is optional
and stdin will be used if it is missing. The result of the
procedures is a list containing the matches. Each match is a single
element of the list and contains filename, number and contents of the
matching line, separated by a colons.
- ::fileutil::install ?-m mode?
source destination
- The install command is similar in functionality to
the install command found on many unix systems, or the shell script
distributed with many source distributions (unix/install-sh in the Tcl
sources, for example). It copies source, which can be either a file
or directory to destination, which should be a directory, unless
source is also a single file. The ?-m? option lets the user specify
a unix-style mode (either octal or symbolic - see file
attributes.
- ::fileutil::stripN path n
- Removes the first n elements from the specified
path and returns the modified path. If n is greater than the
number of components in path an empty string is returned. The
number of components in a given path may be determined by performing
llength on the list returned by file split.
- ::fileutil::stripPwd path
- If, and only if the path is inside of the directory
returned by [ pwd] (or the current working directory itself) it is
made relative to that directory. In other words, the current working
directory is stripped from the path. The possibly modified path is
returned as the result of the command. If the current working directory
itself was specified for path the result is the string "
.".
- ::fileutil::stripPath prefix path
- If, and only of the path is inside of the directory
" prefix" (or the prefix directory itself) it is made
relative to that directory. In other words, the prefix directory is
stripped from the path. The possibly modified path is returned as
the result of the command. If the prefix directory itself was specified
for path the result is the string " .".
- ::fileutil::jail jail path
- This command ensures that the path is not escaping
the directory jail. It always returns an absolute path derived from
path which is within jail.
If path is an absolute path and already within jail it is
returned unmodified.
An absolute path outside of jail is stripped of its root element and
then put into the jail by prefixing it with it. The same happens if
path is relative, except that nothing is stripped of it. Before
adding the jail prefix the path is lexically normalized to
prevent the caller from using .. segments in path to escape
the jail.
- ::fileutil::touch ?-a? ?-c?
?-m? ? -r ref_file? ?-t time?
filename ? ...?
- Implementation of touch. Alter the atime and mtime
of the specified files. If -c, do not create files if they do not
already exist. If -r, use the atime and mtime from ref_file.
If -t, use the integer clock value time. It is illegal to
specify both -r and -t. If -a, only change the atime.
If -m, only change the mtime.
This command is not available for Tcl versions less than 8.3.
- ::fileutil::tempdir
- The command returns the path of a directory where the
caller can place temporary files, such as " /tmp" on Unix
systems. The algorithm we use to find the correct directory is as
follows:
- [1]
- The directory set by an invokation of
::fileutil::tempdir with an argument. If this is present it is
tried exclusively and none of the following item are tried.
- [2]
- The directory named in the TMPDIR environment
variable.
- [3]
- The directory named in the TEMP environment variable.
- [4]
- The directory named in the TMP environment variable.
- [5]
- A platform specific location:
- Windows
- "C:\TEMP", "C:\TMP",
" \TEMP", and " \TMP" are tried in that
order.
- (classic) Macintosh
- The TRASH_FOLDER environment variable is used. This is most
likely not correct.
- Unix
- The directories "/tmp",
"/var/tmp", and " /usr/tmp" are tried in
that order.
The algorithm utilized is mainly that used in the Python standard library. The
exception is the first item, the ability to have the search overridden by a
user-specified directory.
- ::fileutil::tempdir path
- In this mode the command sets the path as the first
and only directory to try as a temp. directory. See the previous item for
the use of the set directory. The command returns the empty string.
- ::fileutil::tempdirReset
- Invoking this command clears the information set by the
last call of [ ::fileutil::tempdir path]. See the last item
too.
- ::fileutil::tempfile ?prefix?
- The command generates a temporary file name suitable for
writing to, and the associated file. The file name will be unique, and the
file will be writable and contained in the appropriate system specific
temp directory. The name of the file will be returned as the result of the
command.
The code was taken from http://wiki.tcl.tk/772, attributed to Igor
Volobouev and anon.
- ::fileutil::relative base dst
- This command takes two directory paths, both either
absolute or relative and computes the path of dst relative to
base. This relative path is returned as the result of the command.
As implied in the previous sentence, the command is not able to compute
this relationship between the arguments if one of the paths is absolute
and the other relative.
Note: The processing done by this command is purely lexical.
Symbolic links are not taken into account.
- ::fileutil::relativeUrl base dst
- This command takes two file paths, both either absolute or
relative and computes the path of dst relative to base, as
seen from inside of the base. This is the algorithm how a browser
resolves a relative link found in the currently shown file.
The computed relative path is returned as the result of the command. As
implied in the previous sentence, the command is not able to compute this
relationship between the arguments if one of the paths is absolute and the
other relative.
Note: The processing done by this command is purely lexical.
Symbolic links are not taken into account.
BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK¶
This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and
other problems. Please report such in the category
fileutil of the
Tcllib SF Trackers [
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=12883].
Please also report any ideas for enhancements you may have for either package
and/or documentation.
KEYWORDS¶
cat, file utilities, grep, temp file, test, touch, type
CATEGORY¶
Programming tools