Tuesday, May 31, 2011

It should not be but it is

I want - need - for a shell script [1] to modify an xml file. 

It's ASCII so I thought 'awk'.  Got into it a bit  and thought 'this is nuts',  Then 'well poop I can't be the first guy to hit this pain point' so I went looking and would up here and holy jeezum crow I gotta learn an entire new language just to modify a stinkin' file?

Well, why not?  It's how I learned the very modest amount of awk that I have in my skull.

Still.  It's ASCII.  I can cat that bitch and everything. 

To slightly misquote my very first boss [2] in the LAN business 'It shouldn't be this hard'.  But it is.

Improvise, adapt, overcome.


[1] Or PERL.  Or Ruby, Python, Racket, something.  Hell it can come wrapped up in a box with a pretty pink bow, whistling 'Dixie', I don't care.  Long as my hell-spawned legacy linux liability can launch it.

[2] SSgt Lingle, 3D FSSG, Okinawa.  Wonder where he is today?
  I actually learned more from my 2nd boss in the LAN business, MSgt Tim Martin but oh well.


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