[VB6] Utility: Pulsar Search & Replace

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:

Code:

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

Files after:

Code:

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.

Code:

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