Re: Modifying a file w/o creating a temp file

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Sat, 24 May 2008 17:15:29 -0400
Message-ID:
<48388571$0$90272$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>
Joe Hudson wrote:

I have a bit of text I want to replace in a file with some other
text. I am aware of how to do this by creating a temp file and
renaming the temp file to the original file name after processing.
However, I am trying to find a way to modify content of a file. Is
there any way I can do something like this file.replace(srcIndexStart,
srcIndexEnd, "replace text");

I know the method I gave is not on the java.io.class and, for that
matter, I would at least use an OutputStream to do this normally.
But, I am beginning to think that what I am looking for isn't an
option with Java. I very much appreciate any insight that someone
might be willing to offer.


As other already have stated, then you can not do that
unless the replacement has the exact same length in bytes.

If not then you will at least need to rewrite from the start
of the changed location.

And I would say that:

small text => rewrite the entire file

large text => use something that is not a sequential file
(structured files with linked lines / index sequential file with
a record per line / database table with a row per line)

Arne

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