fileutil - Procedures implementing some file utilities

package require Tcl 8 package require fileutil ?1.7? ::fileutil::cat files ::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::touch ?-a? ?-c? ?-m? ?-r ref_file? ?-t time? filename ?...? ::fileutil::tempdir ::fileutil::tempfile ?prefix?

This package provides implementations of standard unix utilities.

::fileutil::cat files

A tcl implementation of the UNIX cat command. Returns the contents of the specified file(s). The arguments are files to read. If there are problems reading any of the files, an error will occur, and no data will be returned.

::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.

::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 loose itself in infinite loops upon encountering circular link structures. The result of the command is a list containing the paths to the interesting files.

::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.

::fileutil::stripPwd path

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::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 named in the TMPDIR environment variable.

[2]

The directory named in the TEMP environment variable.

[3]

The directory named in the TMP environment variable.

[4]

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 that used in the Python standard library.

::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.

file utilities, grep, temp file, touch, type