Is there any sed like utility for cmd.exe?

Windows Problem Overview

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?

Windows Solutions

Solution 1 - Windows

Today powershell saved me.

For grep there is:

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

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.

Solution 2 - Windows

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

Cygwin works but is gigantic.
UnxUtils is much slimmer.
GnuWin32 is another port that works.
Another alternative is AT&T Research's UWIN system.
MSYS from MinGw is yet another option.
Windows Subsystem for Linux is a most "native" option, but it's not installed on Windows by default; it has sed, grep etc. out of the box, though.
https://github.com/mbuilov/sed-windows offers recent 4.3 and 4.4 versions, which support -z option unlike listed upper ports

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

Solution 3 - Windows

UnxUtils provides sed for Win32, as does GNUWin32.

Solution 4 - Windows

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.

Solution 5 - Windows

> (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

Solution 6 - Windows

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

Solution 7 - Windows

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

Solution 8 - Windows

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).

Solution 9 - Windows

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/

Solution 10 - Windows

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

Solution 11 - Windows

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

Solution 12 - Windows

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

Solution 13 - Windows

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

Solution 14 - Windows

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.

Solution 15 - Windows

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).

Solution 16 - Windows

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.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Jakub Šturc	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Windows	Jakub Šturc	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Windows	b w	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Windows	Adam Hughes	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Windows	Rober	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Windows	krogon	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Windows	Rob Kam	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Windows	James Boother	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Windows	Brandon DuRette	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Windows	Colin Nicholls	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Windows	robintw	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Windows	Booji Boy	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Windows	foxidrive	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Windows	Linor	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Windows	Jay	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Windows	Mark	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - Windows	bryan kennedy	View Answer on Stackoverflow