Is there any sed like utility for cmd.exe? [closed]

165
votes

I want to programmatically edit file content using windows command line (cmd.exe). In *nix there is sed for this tasks. Is there any useful native equivalent in windows?

16
windowssedcmd
What do you mean by "native" ??? Installable to work in cmd.exe, or to work without installation whatsoever? If the former, see GnuWin32 ref'd below; if the latter, no. No pre-installed native sed for windows. – Michael Paulukonis
By native I meant solution which runs on all windows without installing additional stuff. – Jakub Šturc
Leave cmd.exe behind and use PowerShell instead. – Bill_Stewart
Related: stackoverflow.com/questions/60034/… – AlikElzin-kilaka
If you just want to delete certain lines from a file, use FIND /? – John Henckel

16 Answers

140
votes

Today powershell saved me.

For grep there is:

get-content somefile.txt | where { $_ -match "expression"}

or

select-string somefile.txt -pattern "expression"

and for sed there is:

get-content somefile.txt | %{$_ -replace "expression","replace"}

For more detail about replace PowerShell function see this Microsoft article.

101
votes

sed (and its ilk) are contained within several packages of Unix commands.

If you don't want to install anything and your system ain't a Windows Server one, then you could use a scripting language (VBScript e.g.) for that. Below is a gross, off-the-cuff stab at it. Your command line would look like

cscript //NoLogo sed.vbs s/(oldpat)/(newpat)/ < inpfile.txt > outfile.txt

where oldpat and newpat are Microsoft vbscript regex patterns. Obviously I've only implemented the substitute command and assumed some things, but you could flesh it out to be smarter and understand more of the sed command-line.

Dim pat, patparts, rxp, inp
pat = WScript.Arguments(0)
patparts = Split(pat,"/")
Set rxp = new RegExp
rxp.Global = True
rxp.Multiline = False
rxp.Pattern = patparts(1)
Do While Not WScript.StdIn.AtEndOfStream
  inp = WScript.StdIn.ReadLine()
  WScript.Echo rxp.Replace(inp, patparts(2))
Loop
23
votes

UnxUtils provides sed for Win32, as does GNUWin32.

18
votes

If you don't want to install anything (I assume you want to add the script into some solution/program/etc that will be run in other machines), you could try creating a vbs script (lets say, replace.vbs):

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

strFileName = Wscript.Arguments(0)
strOldText = Wscript.Arguments(1)
strNewText = Wscript.Arguments(2)

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForReading)

strText = objFile.ReadAll
objFile.Close
strNewText = Replace(strText, strOldText, strNewText)

Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForWriting)
objFile.Write strNewText
objFile.Close

And you run it like this:

cscript replace.vbs "C:\One.txt" "Robert" "Rob"

Which is similar to the sed version provided by "bill weaver", but I think this one is more friendly in terms of special (' > < / ) characters.

Btw, I didn't write this, but I can't recall where I got it from.

10
votes

There is Super Sed an enhanced version of sed. For Windows this is a standalone .exe, intended for running from the command line.

9
votes
> (Get-content file.txt) | Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "^SourceRegexp$", "DestinationString"} | Set-Content file.txt

This is behaviour of

sed -i 's/^SourceRegexp$/DestinationString/g' file.txt
7
votes

You could try powershell. There are get-content and set-content commandlets build in that you could use.

7
votes

I use Cygwin. I run into a lot of people that do not realize that if you put the Cygwin binaries on your PATH, you can use them from within the Windows Command shell. You do not have to run Cygwin's Bash.

You might also look into Windows Services for Unix available from Microsoft (but only on the Professional and above versions of Windows).

7
votes

Try fart.exe. It's a Find-and-replace-text utility that can be used in command batch programs.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fart-it/

6
votes

You could install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) and use sed from there.

4
votes

edlin or edit

plus there is Windows Services for Unix which comes with many unix tools for windows. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb380242.aspx

Update 12/7/12 In Windows 2003 R2, Windows 7 & Server 2008, etc. the above is replaced by the Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications (SUA) as an add-on. But you have to download the utilities: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2391

3
votes

You could look at GNU Tools, they provide (amongst other things) sed on windows.

3
votes

There is a helper batch file for Windows called repl.bat which has much of the ability of SED but doesn't require any additional download or installation. It is a hybrid batch file that uses Jscript to implement the features and so is swift, and doesn't suffer from the usual poison characters of batch processing and handles blank lines with ease.

Download repl from - https://www.dropbox.com/s/qidqwztmetbvklt/repl.bat

Alternative link - https://www.dostips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6044

The author is @dbenham from stack overflow and dostips.com

Another helper batch file called findrepl.bat gives the Windows user much of the capabilty of GREP and is also based on Jscript and is likewise a hybrid batch file. It shares the benefits of repl.bat

Download findrepl from - https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfdldmcb6vwi9xc/findrepl.bat

The author is @aacini from stack overflow and dostips.com

2
votes

As far as I know nothing like sed is bundled with windows. However, sed is available for Windows in several different forms, including as part of Cygwin, if you want a full POSIX subsystem, or as a Win32 native executable if you want to run just sed on the command line.

Sed for Windows (GnuWin32 Project)

If it needs to be native to Windows then the only other thing I can suggest would be to use a scripting language supported by Windows without add-ons, such as VBScript.

1
votes

Cygwin works, but these utilities are also available. Just plop them on your drive, put the directory into your path, and you have many of your friendly unix utilities. Lighterweight IMHO that Cygwin (although that works just as well).

0
votes

I needed a sed tool that worked for the Windows cmd.exe prompt. Eric Pement's port of sed to a single DOS .exe worked great for me.

It's pretty well documented.