Date:         Tue, 27 Jun 2000 13:56:39 -0400
Reply-To:     Tom Frenkel <taf2@IS8.NYU.EDU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Tom Frenkel <taf2@IS8.NYU.EDU>
Subject:      UltraEdit "Replace in Files": WARNING!
Comments: cc: idm@idmcomp.com
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

To SAS-L:

Apologies if this seems off-topic, but I think it is important.  Recently
I queried SAS-L about how to do a global "search & replace", covering an
entire directory.  Several people steered me to UltraEdit, and its
"Replace in Files" capability.  Well, I just tried to globally change a
text string in "*.SAS" datasets (i.e. my programs) ... but the process
seemed to be taking too long, so I aborted it.  I then found that, in
addition to my SAS programs, UltraEdit was apparently going through ALL my
files, in the given directory, whose extension *began* with SAS, i.e. my
SAS v8 data and catalog files (*.SASv7bDAT, *.SASv7bCAT).  This is
obviously undesired and extremely dangerous behavior!  Did I miss an
option somewhere that would have restriced the search-and-replace to *.SAS
datasets alone?  The version of UltraEdit I'm using is "UltraEdit-32
Professional Text/HEX Editor, Version 7.10a".  Thanks,

        --Tom
        Tom Frenkel <taf2@is8.nyu.edu>
        http://pages.nyu.edu/~taf2