Before YAML, before JSON, there were null-terminated records. See how this simple, pragmatic technique greases the pipes between UNIX command-line tools---and how you can harness it in your Ruby one-liners!
Tag: text
Episode #651
Chomp
Ruby can be your multitool for all kinds of text-munging tasks. But to use it effectively, you need to understand how Ruby handles line endings and record separators.
Episode #649
Input Record Separator
Ruby has a lot of tools for processing input line-by-line. But when you look a little closer, it turns out that these methods are for more than just lines of …
Episode #648
Output Record Separator
Did you know Ruby has a print method in addition to puts? Did you know it's for record-oriented output? Do you know how to control the formatting of records in …
Episode #642
Line Ending Processing Mode
Want line terminators in input text to just Go Away? Ruby has a mode for that!
Episode #640
Autosplit
Ruby has tools like -n and -p for filtering and summarizing text right from the command-line. But what about columnar input, like process listings or CSV? Today we'll see how …
Episode #638
Ruby as a Filter
Learn how Ruby's -p flag along with a bunch of handy shortcuts can take a script's worth of text filtering and shrink it to a one-liner!
Episode #636
I got my flippy-floppies
Put on your flip-flops, because today we venture ever deeper into the world of Ruby one-liners!
Episode #634
You Could Have Sed It in Ruby
Don't spend time mastering UNIX tools if you can use Ruby one-liners instead.