macOS Inserting characters after X number of line breaks in a text file?

[irregardless]

This seems like it should be simple, but I can't find any tools that will do it and my attempts at scripting it have failed. Sherlock Google has not been able to assist either.

Here's the deal:

I have a long text file with multiple line breaks. I need to insert more text at the end of every X number of lines (probably 5 or 6 depending on how it changes the flow). The new text is the same in all cases.

I've got Text Wrangler and tried using its grep function. I managed to accomplish this task at the end of every line (which I could have done with a standard find-and-replace).

Basically what I need is this:

line 1.
line 2.
line 3. new text
line 4.
line 5.
line 6. next text.

Is there a way to do this? and how complicated is it?

Thanks All.

 

[weldon]

How about simple "find and replace" in MS Word or any other app with that feature. Just "find" 6 line breaks and then replace all the line breaks at once with your new text (including line breaks).

 

[irregardless]

How about simple "find and replace" in MS Word or any other app with that feature. Just "find" 6 line breaks and then replace all the line breaks at once with your new text (including line breaks).

If I had 6 sequential line breaks, that would work fine. But my lines all have different text on them. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

My text file is like this:

line 1: The quick brown fox. <break>
line 2: Henry went out. <break>
line 3: Red cars are neat. Let's get one. <break>

etcetera

In this case, I'd like to add the new text to the end of every third line (or so).

 

[bousozoku]

You should check into awk since it's a programmable command line utility. While it's not simple to use, you could probably find an awk script that you could adapt and learn something in the process.

 

[jsw]

Download http://formymac.com/MR/LineAdder.class

Quick question: do you want the text added to the end of the nth line, or added as a new line every n lines?

If it's the former, open Terminal, go to the directory you saved the file, and type:

java LineAdder fileToUse fileToWrite lineSpacing "text to use"

for example

java LineAdder old.txt new.txt 3 "more text to add"

to turn:

line1
line2
line3
line4
line5
line6

into:

line1
line2
line3more text to add
line4
line5
line6more text to add


If it's the latter, open Terminal, go to the directory you saved the file, and type:

java LineAdder fileToUse fileToWrite lineSpacing "text to use" newline

for example

java LineAdder old.txt new.txt 3 "more text to add" newline

to turn:

line1
line2
line3
line4
line5
line6

into:

line1
line2
line3
more text to add
line4
line5
line6
more text to add

 

[CanadaRAM]

Excel will do it as long as none of the lines are longer than 255 characters.

Import to Excel. Each line will be on a new row. in another column Run a series to count lines.
Calculation to determine if a line is the nth line
Concatenation calculation to add a specific unique character (like ~) to the end of nth lines only
Export the concatenated text, open in word processor. Replace ~ with <break>{additional text}

If you want the added text to be variable, that just means altering the concatenation calculation to add ~{calculated text string} instead of just ~
Then in the word processor you replace ~ with <break>

Excel is often overlooked as a tool for sorting text, creating calculated or concatenated text out of a variety of sources, and prepping data for input to databases.

 

[irregardless]

Download http://formymac.com/MR/LineAdder.class
line1
line2
line3
line4
line5
line6

into:

line1
line2
line3
more text to add
line4
line5
line6
more text to add

Beautiful! This worked perfectly. Big High-5! Thank you and to everyone who offered some help and fast.

You guys are the reason this place is so great.

Cheers!

 

[mufflon]

well if you need to make

line text1
line text2
line text3

into

line
line
line
line text1
...

then just pm me - I got some java scripts I should easily be able to retrofit, no work load @ uni atm and I'm bored