fileutil(n)                     file utilities                     fileutil(n)



______________________________________________________________________________

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



fileutil                            1.14.4                         fileutil(n)
