Editing mirc/text files

{{mirc title|Text Files}}
'''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.

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== 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 {{mIRC|mSL Injection|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:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">; read a random line from file.txt
$read(file.txt, n)</syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">$read(file.txt, n, line)</syntaxhighlight>

=== Searching the File ===
$read() offers three methods for searching a file: 

* Scanner
* {{mirc|wildcard|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:

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

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">alias abbr return $read(abbr.txt, ns, $1)</syntaxhighlight>

Executing the following code:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">//echo -a $abbr(lol)
//echo -a $abbr(brb)</syntaxhighlight>

Will produce the following output:

<pre>laughing out loud
be right back</pre>

==== Wildcard And RegEx Patterns ====
Both the {{mirc|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:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">; A wildcard pattern match:
$read(file.txt, nw, *wildmatch*)

; A regex pattern match:
$read(file.txt, nr, /pattern/)</syntaxhighlight>

==== 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:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">; Start searching from line 400:
$read(file.txt, nw, *hello*, 400)</syntaxhighlight>

== 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 'test' in a file, we can construct a loop like this:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">//while ($read(file.txt, nw, *test*, $calc($readn + 1))) echo -a $v1</syntaxhighlight>

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.

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">/write text.txt <string></syntaxhighlight>

=== Inserting a Line ===
To insert text at specific line we have the following syntax:

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">/write -il<line> file.txt <text></syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">/write -il2 file.txt Hello There!</syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">; Delete line <line> from a file:
/write -dl<line> file.txt</syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">; clear the file
/write -c file.txt</syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">/remove file.txt
; send to the recycle bin
/remove -b file.txt</syntaxhighlight>

[[Category:mIRC|text files]]
@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 '''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 ==
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-To determine if a file exists we can use the $isfile() identifier.
-<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">$isfile(file.txt)</syntaxhighlight>
-In many cases you'd want to check the number of lines in the file. $lines() will help you there.
-<syntaxhighlight lang="mirc">$lines(file.txt)</syntaxhighlight>
 == Reading From a Text File ==