SSR: Simple Search & Replace

HOWTO search and replace from command line

Background

I was to search and replace inside a simple batch-script and wanted a search and replace tool from the command line.

After searching I didn't find what I was looking for and compiled this simple tool.

ssr.exe (Win32-Command-Line-Tool)

Example

ssr c:\\temp\\= \\=\t test.txt

Deletes the string c:\temp\ and replaces \ (backslash) with TAB

ssr "ServerHost=Value1"="ServerHost=Value2" config_file.ini

Use above command to replace values in a config file

ssr -0 \x01=\x20 test.txt >test_space.txt

Replace hex 00 with spaces in a textfile (-0 or --zero)

ssr -m="....[05]00 {8}....[05]00.*" -h=X,Y,Z \s08=, \s07=, grid.txt -o=grid_500m.csv

Use above command to reduce huge coordinate grid file (grid in 100m) to grid in 500m CC. Grid line format: 1234567 1234567 123.45

ssr search.txt=replace.txt test.txt

Replaces the content of search.txt with the content of replace.txt in test.txt (if search.txt and replace.txt exists)

ssr -l -r "\s*([^ ])\s*\e\s*([^ ]*)\s*"="$1\e$2" test.txt

Removes whitespace around Name = Value pairs in test.txt

Download / Install

• get SSR   ssr.zip a 32-bit windows-command-line-application
  
• Extract the ssr.exe (1 file) place it whereever (preferable in path) and run (from command line)...
  
  
• Install ssr with chocolatey package manager:
  choco install ssr -s http://chocolatey.commercior.com/chocolatey
• Update ssr with:
  choco upgrade ssr -s http://chocolatey.commercior.com/chocolatey

Parameters

some more parameters (compared to ssr --help) is documented here
(all parameters can be prefixed with - or -- or /)

Flags / Switches

-c or -case-sensitive

default all searches is not case sensitive

-l or -line-by-line

use a line by line approch instead of loading content into memory. somewhat slower but allows for huge input.

-r or -regexp

use a simple regular expression engine for search=replace

-w or -write

overwrite input file

-uf or -use-file

fetch search,replace,prefix,suffix,header,footer from file (if exist) instead of command line as search.txt=replace.txt (must be placed before a search=replace pair) and can be turned on and off
-uf search.txt=replace.txt -uf -prefix=no-file-tested.txt -uf -suffix=file-content-tested.txt

-rd or -remove-duplicates

remove duplicate lines from input (before search=replace) - content is sorted (-sort flag is turned on)

-sort or -sorted

content rows is sorted (before search=replace)

-ff or -fastfind

only search (no replace) and exit with ERRORLEVEL 2 if found and ERRORLEVEL 1 if not

-unix or -unixformat

default CRLF(#13#10) is used as line endings - with this flag use LF(#10)

-h2t or -html2text or -htm2txt

simple html to text extraction/conversion

-quote or -quotes or -qoute or -qoutes

add prefix " and suffix " for each line

-ssi

"server-side-includes" expands <!--#include virtual|file="head.inc" --> and <!-- include: head.inc --> content

-mysql or -mariadb

escape some chars - "=\", CRLF=\n, CR=\n, LF=\n, TAB=\t

-json

try to extract json structures {..} [..] from content - escape ", remove tab and newline

-jsonarray

add comma between rows - for example if you have output {..} json structures into rows

-latin1 or -utf8-latin1

convert utf8 content to latin1 (conversion after search/replace)

-dos or -latin1-dos

convert latin1 content to an old dos codepage (conversion after search/replace) both -latin1 and -dos is possible

name=value

-o=filename or -output=filename

send output to file instead of standard output

-n=num or -number-of-lines=num

return first number of lines num is a number greater than 0 (turns on line-by-line)

-m=regexp or -match=regexp

only return rows matching regexp (turns on line-by-line)

-k=num or -occurrance=num

only replace first num matches (not together with line-by-line)

-h=header or -header=header

a header is prepended to the output - use -uf -header=header.txt to supply content from file (add after search/replace)

-f=footer or -footer=footer

a footer is appended to the output - use -uf -footer=footer.txt to supply content from file (add after search/replace)

-p=prefix or -prefix=prefix

a prefix to all rows - use -uf -prefix=prefix.txt to supply content from file (add after search/replace)

-s=suffix or -suffix=suffix

a suffix to all rows - use -uf -suffix=suffix.txt to supply content from file (add after search/replace)

Versions / History

2025-jun-12, version 1.38

-fixed some inconsistent params and documented params above

2025-jun-10, version 1.37

-sort and remove-duplicates fix

2022-jan-24, version 1.32

-latin1 flag: convert utf8 to latin1

2020-sep-04, version 1.3

-filter flag: return only rows matching filter string

2019-dec-16, version 1.28

new --mysql flag: escape ", tab and newline

2018-okt-12, version 1.24

new -uf (--use-file) flag, previous version always tried to find a file with content of search or replace

2017-dec-30, version 1.23

documented -rd and -sort flag

2017-dec-05, version 1.22

-k flag didn't work correct and description was updated

2017-feb-20, version 1.20

if search (or replace) is a filname, that content is not escaped by \t etc.

2016-jun-30, version 1.19

fix to use $search$replace$ pairs for shells that do not like the equal sign

2014-nov-01, version 1.17

small bug-fix

2013-sep-03, version 1.15

support for \q as " (quote)

2013-maj-31, version 1.13

added support to replace hex00 in textfiles

2013, version 1.11

Some buggfixes published

2010-mar-05, version 1.6

Support for regular expresion substitutions

2010-feb-22, version 1.5

Support for large search and replace statements

2009-nov-05, version 1.4

Buggfix, parsing correct filename from commandline

2009-oct-21, version 1.3

Line-By-Line function for huge files.

2009-aug-03, version 1.0

Implemented

Published

This tool is published in the softpedia catalogue: softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/SSR-Simple-Search-Replace.shtml

More info

More info/questions from: Subject: SSR