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- Newsgroups: comp.programming
- Subject: Re: Need a text manipulation tool / programming language.
- Message-ID: <1992Nov23.165246.1@ocvaxc.cc.oberlin.edu>
- From: bamon@ocvaxc.cc.oberlin.edu
- Date: 23 Nov 92 16:52:46 EDT
- References: <1992Nov21.235606.1497@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1992Nov23.135450.27950@news.uiowa.edu>
- Organization: Oberlin College
- Nntp-Posting-Host: ocvaxc.cc.oberlin.edu
- Lines: 34
-
- In article <1992Nov21.235606.1497@leland.Stanford.EDU> felciano@summit.stanford.edu (Ramon M. Felciano) writes:
- >
- >Hi --
- >
- >I'm looking for a tool or programming language designed for the
- >manipulation of text files. I've got a number of similarly formatted
- >files that I want parsed into my program. Before I can do that,
- >however, I need to "massage" these files into the same format. I tried
- >writting a tool to do this, but the result starting looking more and
- >more like a language syntax parser (aagh!)
- >
- >Are there any tools (Mac, Unix, or other) that do something like this?
- >I guess I'm sort of looking for a glorified grep with language
- >constructs (e.g. if-thens).
- >
- >Thanks!
- >
- >Ramon
- >
-
- There is a whole language devoted to text manipulation. It's called
- Snobol. It's GREAT for large jobs. I've used it to create hundreds
- of pages of vendor catalogues from huge magtape files. It's also
- great for not so large, but very complex jobs. It is a really
- easy to use and easy to modify language, but there is a little bit
- of a learning curve. It's available as Spitbol for the VAX/VMS, and
- there is a PC version as well. It allows complex pattern matching,
- and branching on the basis of the success or failure of any match.
-
- If you want to know more, email me.
-
- Jennifer
- bamon@ocvaxc.cc.oberlin.edu
-
-