Helpful - Manipulating large text files

1 Overview

Whilst not strictly related to bxp this article serves as a reference for Database Administrators and other technical people who need to handle large data files.

For example when exporting data from bxp Base 64 images represent a lot of text in a file. You may need to edit / manipulate the data... here are a few hints.

2 Notes

2.1 Notepad Vs. Notepad++

Be careful opening large text files in Notepad++ as the spell check / syntax highlighting can really slow down process. Open them in simple notepad and they can open a lot faster. Notepad does have limits though.

2.2 Find replace

Whilst possible to do find replace using a variety of tools, when you have lots of large files... your tactics may vary.

• Simple : Use notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/

• Medium : Use Visual Studio Code. Move the files into a folder in your current project. Ctrl and H. Then set the folder to search to be your specific data files folder. https://code.visualstudio.com/

• Large : Lots of replacements in lots of files needs something a bit stronger. Personally I use http://findandreplace.io/?z=codeplex fnr.exe It does exactly what it says on the tin!

2.3 Breaking up and joining files

Many options available but I always go back to HJSplit http://www.hjsplit.org/windows/

For playing with multimedia files DVD VideoSoft Free Studio is always useful https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/free-dvd-video-software.htm

2.4 Moving files

Zip files are your best friend. Get 7Zip onto your machine and zip away to your hearts content. Move lots of data in little files in one big file it's always easier. https://www.7-zip.org/

For getting files onto a server via sFTP then there is only one Filezilla. https://filezilla-project.org/

2.5 Mass changing file extensions

Really easy. DOS window and go into the folder where you have the files you want to change

ren *.txt *.sql

Hit return and all your text files are now SQL files. Shame it doesn't work that easy on image conversion. For that you have GIMP https://www.gimp.org/downloads/