[VB6] Utility: Pulsar Search & Replace

[dilettante]

Title

Pulsar is a small utility program for bulk search and replace on VB6 Project folders.


Description and Features

You give it a list of search and replace strings, a list of files to process, and it runs through the files repeating the search and replace list against the files list. The original files can optionally be renamed with a backup prefix, and the processed files can optionally be renamed using a seach and replace string pair.

Files before:

FredMain.bas
FredMDI.frm
FredMDI.frx
FredDoc.frm
FredDoc.frx
Fred.vbp

Files after:

sv-FredMain.bas SuperMain.bas
sv-FredMDI.frm  SuperMDI.frm
sv-FredMDI.frx  SuperMDI.frx
sv-FredDoc.frm  SuperDoc.frm
sv-FredDoc.frx  SuperDoc.frx
sv-Fred.vbp     Super.vbp

This is useful when you have built a Project and partway through you find you want to rename the Project itself and occurrences of the name in the program, or anytime you need to make such changes all over within your multi-module Project.

The replace specs and the log of the last run are retained in a "Pulsar specs" file you can use again if required.

Like the VB6 IDE's Replace operation Pulsar can search and replace on Whole Words or Anywhere but it also has options to replace Prefixes or Suffixes. This gives you a little more flexibility.

Non-replaceable files (.frx, .res, binary files in general, etc.) can be included in the files list so they get backed up or renamed, but they can be de-selected so that Pulsar does not try to do search and replace on them. Pulsar is meant to work on ANSI files (like VB6 .frm, .vbp, etc.) and Unicode text files are not supported.

Caution:

There may well be bugs in the backup/renaming logic yet. It is safest to create a copy of your whole Project folder and operate on that right now. This may save you a lot of grief if (a.) your find and replace operations didn't do what you want, (b.) the changes are not easily reversible, and (c.) the backup process failed to work entirely correctly.


Author

Bob Riemersma


System Requirements

Windows XP or later. No special hardware or Edition required. VB6 required to compile this utility. No EXE provided in this initial 1.0 release.


License Info

Copyright © 2011, Robert Riemersma

Licensed under terms of the Code Project Open License (CPOL) 1.02.


Sample Log

Here I did a run against the Pulsar source folder, backing files up with the prefix "BK$" and renaming any file name parts of "Pulsar" to "Fudd" along the way. The replace string specs also change all whole words and prefixes of "Pulsar" to "Fudd" making my new Fudd program source.

Last run: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 12:13:36 AM

File:   D:\Pulsar\AppEx.cls
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$AppEx.cls
New:    D:\Pulsar\AppEx.cls
        0 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\EscapedStrings.bas
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$EscapedStrings.bas
New:    D:\Pulsar\EscapedStrings.bas
        0 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\FontWiz.cls
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$FontWiz.cls
New:    D:\Pulsar\FontWiz.cls
        0 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\Pulsar.RES
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$Pulsar.RES
New:    D:\Pulsar\Fudd.RES
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\Pulsar.vbp
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$Pulsar.vbp
New:    D:\Pulsar\Fudd.vbp
        16 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\Pulsar.vbw
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$Pulsar.vbw
New:    D:\Pulsar\Fudd.vbw
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarFiles.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarFiles.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddFiles.frm
        15 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarFiles.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarFiles.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddFiles.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarHelp.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarHelp.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddHelp.frm
        6 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarHelp.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarHelp.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddHelp.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarMain.bas
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarMain.bas
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddMain.bas
        2 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarMDI.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarMDI.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddMDI.frm
        38 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarMDI.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarMDI.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddMDI.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarRun.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarRun.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddRun.frm
        13 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarRun.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarRun.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddRun.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarSpecs.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarSpecs.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddSpecs.frm
        7 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarSpecs.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarSpecs.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddSpecs.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarStrings.frm
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarStrings.frm
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddStrings.frm
        8 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\PulsarStrings.frx
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$PulsarStrings.frx
New:    D:\Pulsar\FuddStrings.frx
        Not selected, no replacments attempted.
File:   D:\Pulsar\readme.txt
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$readme.txt
New:    D:\Pulsar\readme.txt
        0 replacements made.
File:   D:\Pulsar\RTBEx.bas
Backup: D:\Pulsar\BK$RTBEx.bas
New:    D:\Pulsar\RTBEx.bas
        0 replacements made.
Complete

[dilettante]

Version 1.1

No change in operation or function except to correct a very serious bug.

Using Pulsar more myself is pointing to some useful enhancements worth having though!