You had a text munging problem. You didn't have a tool problem, or a language problem. You had a text problem.

You did post in scripting, so the solutions will tend toward a scripting language, but it is not a given.

You asked for help. With an exclamation mark! Which some would feel indicates you thought getting a solution to the problem was important to you.

You obviously committed to enough time of trying the local tools (awk and sed) and failed.

I asked enough to get you to state the problem a bit clearer, and check to see if you could get the data to a box you control and could install a tool that would allows me to give you the solution.

This made you unhappy. For some reason, you did not want to download a free 16MB file and install it. You on dialup? You get charged by the byte? And you made some type of statement confusing it with an editor. Moron.

Mommy mommy - I tried something and fucked it up a few years ago - I'll make sure I never try that again.

Instead, you whined. Like a little girl. Like an idiot end user who barely manages to wipe the drool of his face while spewing about is love of his word processor. If it's good enough to write a TPS report is must be good enough for whatever random programming task you need.

And actually, Word VBA macros can be powerful. But this wasn't a language pissing match, this was a specific task that SEEMED to need to get done ASAP. Remember, YOU were the one who said "Help!"

I'm pretty sure given your: I already have Word on the box, wouldn't have to install anything. my reaction was understated.

And then, you have the balls to insult everyone who took time an effort to explore the problem and lead toward a solution.

WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE!
WHAT A DUMB FUCKING ASSHOLE!

I always knew you were a dick, but I never thought you were stupid.

Until now.

Hear that spinning sound?
It's you backpedaling.

You?
Playing misunderstood?
The master of so many languages?

"Nah, I was fully expecting our gurus to enlighten me on sed"

And they failed you.
Awwww.

"I must say, I was a bit surprised that they apparently couldn't do it -- at least not very easily. (And no, "they" here means the Unix utilities, not our Unix gurus. Had the former been able to do it, then the latter also would have been.)"

Actually, I'm sure I (and any of the other Unix people) could figure it out using your limited tool choices. After seeing Scott do OO programming in a variety of languages, I'm sure he could torture sed to do the task.

BUT WE AREN'T THAT STUPID.

We reach into the tool belt and pull out the tool for the task. Some such as myself will reach for Perl, other such as Todd would reach for Squeak. It doesn't mean that we can't come up with the solution in other languages / utilities, just it is a stupid waste of time. It was a 3 line task in most decent scripting languages. And you did post in the scripting forum.

And then you go on being surprised that using mediocre tools are avoided by people with experience in them. The tools you expected them to use. The tools you DON'T have experience in. WTF is wrong with this picture?

You.

;-}

At least the jowlier one.

Your mastery of English far exceeds mine.

Too bad you're still a text munging wannabe.