NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Inode numbers will change by default, but there is a -i option with which given the inode number of each edited file will be preserved.

As for filter commands, a single command may be specified as the first argument to inplace. To pass many filter commands, specify each followed by the -e option.

There are some cases where inplace does not replace a file, such as when:

1. The original file is not writable (use -f to force editing against read-only files)
2. A filter command fails and exits with a non-zero return code
3. The resulted output is identical to the original file
4. The resulted output is empty (use -z to accept empty output)

OPTIONS

-h

 

--help

Show help and exit.

-D

 

--debug

Turn on debug output.

-L

 

--dereference

By default, inplace ignores non-regular files including symlinks, but this switch makes it resolve (dereference) each symlink using realpath(3) and edit the original file.

-b SUFFIX

 

--backup-suffix SUFFIX

Create a backup file with the given suffix for each file. Note that backup files will be written over existing files, if any.

-e COMMANDLINE

 

--execute COMMANDLINE

Specify a filter command line to run for each file in which the following placeholders can be used:

%0

replaced by the original file path, shell escaped with \'s as necessary

%1

replaced by the source file path, shell escaped with \'s as necessary

%2

replaced by the destination file path, shell escaped with \'s as necessary

%%

replaced by ‘%’

Omission of %2 indicates %1 should be modified destructively, and omission of both %1 and %2 implies “(...) < %1 > %2” around the command line.

When the filter command is run, the destination file is always an empty temporary file, and the source file is either the original file or a temporary copy file.

Every temporary file has the same suffix as the original file, so that file name aware programs can play nicely with it.

Instead of specifying a whole command line, you can use a command alias defined in a configuration file, ~/.inplace. See the FILES section for the file format.

This option can be specified many times, and they will be executed in sequence. A file is only replaced if all of them succeeds.

See the EXAMPLES section below for details.

-f

 

--force

By default, inplace does not perform editing if a file is not writable. This switch makes it force editing even if a file to process is read-only.

-i

 

--preserve-inode

Make sure to preserve the inode number of each file.

-n

 

--dry-run

Do not perform any destructive operation and just show what would have been done. This switch implies -v.

-s

 

--same-directory

Create a temporary file in the same directory as each replaced file. This may speed up the performance when the directory in question is on a partition that is fast enough and the system temporary directory is slow.

This switch can be effectively used when the temporary directory does not have sufficient disk space for a resulted file.

If this option is specified, edited files will have newly assigned inode numbers. To prevent this, use the -i option.

-t

 

--preserve-timestamp

Preserve the access and modification times of each file.

-v

 

--verbose

Turn on verbose mode.

-z

 

--accept-empty

By default, inplace does not replace the original file when a resulted file is empty in size because it is likely that there is a mistake in the filter command. This switch makes it accept empty (zero-sized) output and replace the original file with it.

EXAMPLES

• Sort files in-place using sort(1):
  inplace sort file1 file2 file3

  Below works the same as above, passing each input file via the command line argument:

  inplace 'sort %1 > %2' file1 file2 file3
• Perform in-place charset conversion and newline code conversion:
  inplace -e 'iconv -f EUC-JP -t UTF-8' -e 'perl -pe "s/$/\\r/"' file1 file2 file3
• Process image files taking backup files:
  inplace -b.orig 'convert -rotate 270 -resize 50%% %1 %2' *.jpg
• Perform a mass MP3 tag modification without changing timestamps:
  find mp3/Some_Artist -name '*.mp3' -print0 | xargs -0 inplace -te 'mp3info -a "Some Artist" -g "Progressive Rock" %1'

  As you see above, inplace makes a nice combo with find(1) and xargs(1).

FILES

~/.inplace

The configuration file, which syntax is described as follows:

• Each alias definition is a name/value pair separated with an “=”, one per line.
• White spaces at the beginning or the end of a line, and around assignment separators (“=”) are stripped off.
• Lines starting with a “#” are ignored.

ENVIRONMENT

TMPDIR

 

TMP

 

TEMP

Temporary directory candidates where inplace attempts to create intermediate output files, in that order. If none is available and writable, /tmp is used. If -s is specified, they will not be used.

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

BUGS

So, a problem can arise if the file system supports nanoseconds, like ext4 and ZFS, but the platform does not have the system call to set timestamps in nanoseconds, like Linux < 2.6.22, glibc < 2.6 and FreeBSD, that the sub-microsecond part of a timestamp cannot be preserved.