Loading All Files of a Directory

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Loading All Files of a Directory

exaEdit offers the possibility to load all files of a directory at once into one workfile, to make changes there and to write all files back into the directory.

If you wish to use this multiple loading, it only is possible with the exaEdit command LOAD, not with the calling of exaEdit. The parameter needed is

MULTIPLE

Its minimal abbreviation is M.

It is not possible to say anything about the sequence of the individual files when they are loaded, anyway, it is not necessarily an alphabetical order.

If the directory contains subdirectories, they are ignored.

In order to have the information which records belong to which file in the workfile also, a certain separator record is written as the first record of each file. A separator record normally has the form

$$$DDD$$$

where the file name replaces the characters DDD.

You have the option to use separator records of your own choice when you specify the parameter

MULTIPLE /string/

at the LOAD command. The choice of the delimiters of the separator string is free, as usual in exaEdit. If the character string DDD occurs in the separator string, it will be replaced by the file name. Working without any separator string is possible if you specify an empty character string (//).

If LOAD ... MULTIPLE ... is executed in an empty workfile, exaEdit stores the information that the workfile was generated in this way and notes this with the letter M in the status line. Besides, the top line and the status line display the name of the directory instead of a file name. This has an effect on the execution of the command FILE.

The specification of a directory name may be done in the usual way, for example is . (a dot) the name of the current directory.

You might receive one of the following error messages (in addition to those at LOAD):

Directory not found

That means that you specified MULTIPLE and no object with that name could be found.

Object is no directory

This means that you specified MULTIPLE, that the object exists (contrasting to the message above) but that it is not a directory but probably a file.

Directory not opened

That means that the directory cannot be processed despite all the previous successful checks. The precise cause cannot be specified.

If data sets of the directory were loaded, you receive the message

... file[s] loaded

If the directory also contains subdirectories, you will receive the message:


... subdirectory/-ies skipped

You also have the possibility to load only files with specified names or to exclude files with specified names. The required parameters are


SELECT ...    resp.    EXCLUDE

Both parameters have to appear prior to MULTIPLE, unless MULTIPLE is used with the sub-parameter /string/. In that case, the positioning of the parameters is variable. If one of the two parameters is specified, MULTIPLE is always assumed, too.

How do you specify the file names? The first way is to specify a workfile-name. This workfile then has to contain file names, line by line. The alternative to this is specifying a list of file names, separated by spaces and enclosed in parentheses. An example:


SELECT LISTE EXCLUDE (ABC XY)

This would load all files of a directory that are mentioned in the workfile LISTE, without the two files ABC and XY. You can, of course, use the parameters SELECT and EXCLUDE separately.

It is not necessary to specify full names for the file names. A question mark (?) designates any single character, an asterisk (*) designates any sequence of characters (including empty sequences), and of any number of characters enclosed in brackets ([]) one has to appear at the given position. It is also possible to specify a range of characters within the brackets: Two characters connected with a minus sign (-) mean any character within the lexical range of the two characters. If you want to use either the minus sign or the closing bracket as a specifying character within the brackets, they have to appear as first or last character within the brackets. You can exclude (a range of) characters by preceding them with an exclamation mark (!), i.e. the file names chosen must not have the specified characters at the given position.

The help text for the command LOAD that deals with EXCLUDE and SELECT is available with the commands


HELP LOADX    and

HELP LOADY

Next: Saving a File Previous: Parameters for Large Files Up: Loading a File