How to edit each line of a file in ruby, without using a temp file

Rails
1

Hi,

Is there a way to edit each line in a file, without involving 2 files?
Say,
the original file has,

test01
test02
test03

I want to edit it like
test01,a
test02,a
test03,a

Tried something like this, but it replaces some of the characters.
File.open(‘mytest.csv’, ‘r+’) do |file|
file.each_line do |line|
file.seek(-line.length, IO::SEEK_CUR)
file.puts ‘a’
end
end

Writing it to a temporary file and then replace the original file works,
However, I need to edit the file quite often and therefore prefer to do
it
within the file itself .Any pointers are appreciated.

Thank you!

2

On 2 October 2012 05:00, Nila [email protected] wrote:

test01,a

Writing it to a temporary file and then replace the original file works,
However, I need to edit the file quite often and therefore prefer to do it
within the file itself .Any pointers are appreciated.

It sounds like you might be better using records in a database for
each line and re-generate the file when it is needed as a file. Rails
is quite good at modifying records in a database :slight_smile:

Colin

3

On Oct 2, 2012, at 12:00 AM, Nila wrote:

test02,a
Writing it to a temporary file and then replace the original file works,
However, I need to edit the file quite often and therefore prefer to do it within
the file itself .Any pointers are appreciated.
You can stash the data in an array, manipulate it there, and then write
it back to the file store after. Ignore the HEREDOC parts of this, and
substitute your file read/write bits, and this should work:

foo = <<EOF
one
two
three
EOF
bar = []
foo.each_line do |line|
bar.push (line.strip + ‘,a’)
end
foo = bar.join("\n")
puts foo

Walter

4

Walter D. wrote in post #1078369:

On Oct 2, 2012, at 12:00 AM, Nila wrote:

test02,a
Writing it to a temporary file and then replace the original file works,
However, I need to edit the file quite often and therefore prefer to do
it within
the file itself .Any pointers are appreciated.
You can stash the data in an array, manipulate it there, and then write
it back to the file store after. Ignore the HEREDOC parts of this, and
substitute your file read/write bits, and this should work:

foo = <<EOF
one
two
three
EOF
bar = []
foo.each_line do |line|
bar.push (line.strip + ‘,a’)
end
foo = bar.join("\n")
puts foo

Keep in mind that doing it this way will load the entire file into RAM,
may not be an issue given today’s servers have lots of RAM. However,
doing what Colin suggested, using a database, would almost certainly be
the more efficient solution.

5

Thank you very much for the help.