Revision as of 17:35, 20 February 2016

Plain text files are files you can edit via a basic editor like notepad and has no special structure. Below are a few handy commands and identifiers to work with plain text files.

File Info

To determine if a file exists we can use the $isfile() identifier.

$isfile(file.txt)

In many cases you'd want to check the number of lines in the file. $lines() will help you there.

$lines(file.txt)

Reading From a Text File

The $read() identifier is a very powerful command that can be used to read from a text file in a variety of ways.

n Switch

By default, $read will evaluate the text it reads as if it was mSL code. To prevent this behavior you must use the n switch. Throughout this article we will ALWAYS use that switch. Improper use of the $read() identifier without the 'n' switch could leave your script highly vulnerable.

Reading a Random Line

The most basic functionality $read() offers is the ability to read a random line from a particular file. The syntax is:

; read a random line from file.txt
$read(file.txt, n)

Reading a Specific Line

To read a specific line from a file you can specify the line number as the third argument.

$read(file.txt, n, line)

Searching the File

$read() offers three methods for searching a file:

• Scanner
• Wildcard Pattern
• Regular Expression Pattern

Scanner

The scanner is the most primitive search of the three. It will go through each line comparing the pattern provided to the first part of the line. If a match is found, mIRC will return the text that followed the pattern.

Consider the following abbr.txt:

lol laughing out loud
lmao Laughing my ass off
btw by the way
brb be right back

We can use the following alias to get the abbreviation we are looking for.

alias abbr return $read(abbr.txt, ns, $1)

Executing the following code:

//echo -a $abbr(lol)
//echo -a $abbr(brb)

Will produce the following output:

laughing out loud
be right back

Wildcard And RegEx Patterns

Both the wildcard pattern matching and the regex pattern matching works by searching for the first matching line and returning the entire line. It follows the same syntax as the scanner:

; A wildcard pattern match:
$read(file.txt, nw, *wildmatch*)
 
; A regex pattern match:
$read(file.txt, nr, /pattern/)

Starting Line

If you specify a line number after the pattern, that line will be used as the first line to start searching from.

For Example:

; Start searching from line 400:
$read(file.txt, nw, *hello*, 400)

Iterating Over Matches

$readn is an identifier that returns the line that $read() matched. We can use that to start searching for our pattern on the next line.

For example, to search all the line containing the word 'apple' in a file, we can construct a loop like this:

//while ($read(file.txt, nw, *test*, $calc($readn + 1))) echo -a $v1

In the code above, $readn starts at 0. We use $calc() to start at line 1. Every match $read() will start searching on the next line. When no more matches are after the line specified $read will return $null - terminating the loop.

Writing to a Plain Text File

The /write command can be used to manipulate a text file in a variety of ways.

Appending a Line

/write's simplest operation is the append operation. By default, /write will write a text line to the end of the file.

/write text.txt <string>

Inserting a Line

To insert text at specific line we have the following syntax:

/write -il<line> file.txt <text>

For example, the following line will write "Hello There!" at line 2.

/write -il2 file.txt Hello There!

Deleting a Line

The /write command provides the ability to delete a specific line from a file.

; Delete line <line> from a file:
/write -dl<line> file.txt

Clearing A File

The -c switch on /write can be combined to clear the file before writing to it.

; clear the file
/write -c file.txt

Deleting a File

The delete a file, you can use the /remove command:

/remove file.txt
; send to the recycle bin
/remove -b file.txt