Re: [PATCH] Add new option --in-place

[Pádraig Brady]

On 20/03/10 08:32, Jim Meyering wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> [Cc'ing bug-coreutils...]
> 
> Giuseppe proposed to add the --in-place option to GNU cppi,
> (cppi is a small program that can act as a filter
>   http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=6210
> but cppi is so small that adding even that single, relatively
> simple option would make it substantially more complicated.
> 
> I'm nearly certain I've seen a program (possibly a small
> perl script) that can effectively add the --in-place
> functionality to any filter program, but so far my searches
> have been in vain.
> 
> I want a tool that works like this:
> 
>     in-place [--backup] 'cppi ...options' *.c
> 
> For each .c file, it would apply the filter program, and upon each
> successful exit, it would update the .c file in place (atomically,
> of course) with the output from the filter.
> 
> Can anyone point to existing code that does that?

Well we were talking about a small "replace" or "inplace" script,
in coreutils/contrib/ which would use the facilities of various coreutils
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2009-09/msg00327.html
I didn't get any feedback on the new cp --attributes-only option
though so was worried about adding this new interface.

cheers,
Pádraig.