SAD!

Space Age seD

What does it do?

Basically sad is a Batch File Edit tool.

It will show you a really nice diff of proposed changes before you commit them.

Unlike sed, you can double check before you fat finger your edit.

Preview (with fzf)

Selectively replace std -> joseph joestar in the sad repo.

You can pick and choose which changes to apply.

You can also choose the clustering factor for changes using --unified=<n>. (Same as in GNU diff)

If you have delta installed, try --pager 'delta -s' for side by side view

Preview (no fzf)

Replace all'"(\d+)"' -> '🌈$1🌈' in the chromium repo.

use --commit or -k to commit changes all at once.

-c is taken because sad has to trick fzf into thinking it's bash :)

How to use sad?

with fzf

export GIT_PAGER='<highlighter-of-your-choice>'
# ^ can be done in your bash/zsh/rc file.
find "$FIND_ARGS" | sad '<pattern>' '<replacement>'

Note: --multi is passed to fzf so you can select multiple files with Shift+tab

without fzf

find "$FIND_ARGS" | sad '<pattern>' '<replacement>' | highlighter-of-your-choice

or

find "$FIND_ARGS" | sad '<pattern>' '<replacement>' --pager=<highlighter-of-your-choice>

or

export GIT_PAGER='<highlighter-of-your-choice>'
find "$FIND_ARGS" | sad '<pattern>' '<replacement>'

gotta go fast

If you wanna go fast.

• preview to verify you really want the changes.

• run with --commit, and redirect stdout to a file or /dev/null

---

Requirements

Technically none of these are "required", but they make sad so much happier.

If you install the things below, sad will automatically use them. It's progressive enhancement!

Commandline fuzzer

fzf

sad does not come with a UI, it uses fzf to perform selection.

Diff Colorizer

Any git compatible colourizer would work. I prefer these two:

delta

fd <files> | sad <pattern> <replacement> | delta

diff-so-fancy

fd <files> | sad <pattern> <replacement> | diff-so-fancy | less

Environmental Variables

Name	Function
GIT_PAGER	sad will use the same pager as git

Flags

Name	Function
-f --flags	Regex flags, see below
-k --commit	No preview, write changes to file
-0 --read0	Use \x00 as stdin delimiter
-e --exact	String literal mode
-p --pager	Colourizing program, disable = never
--fzf	Additional Fzf options, disable = never
-u --unified	Same as in GNU diff, affects hunk size

Regex Flags

By default, sad uses smartcase, and multiline matching.

For each options, lowercase toggles on and uppercase toggles off.

ie. i => on, I => off

Name	Function
i	case insensitive (works for --exact mode as well)
m	multiline: ^ $ match each line
s	allow . match \n
u	swap the meaning of * and *? patterns, (normally * is lazy and *? is greedy)
x	ignore whitespace and allow # comments

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Good
1	Bad
130	Interrupted (ie. user cancel), or if using fzf, it will always exit 130.

GET SAD NOW!

For scripting, use the following format:

# replace `x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb` with your desired package
wget 'https://github.com/ms-jpq/sad/releases/latest/download/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb'

Homebrew:

brew install sad

Scoop:

scoop install sad

Snap Store:

coming soon...

Distribution packages:

Debian/Ubuntu:

You can download sad deb packages from the github release page.

Arch Linux:

There is an official Arch Linux package that can be installed via pacman:

pacman -Syu sad

Other:

Missing a package for your favourite distribution? Let us know!

Compile from source:

Requirements:

To compile sad yourself you'll have to make sure you have Rust and cargo installed.

Install instructions:

To install cargo from source you can run the following commands:

cargo install --locked --all-features \
  --git https://github.com/ms-jpq/sad --branch senpai

If you want to install it in a specific directory you can provide the --root flag, like so:

cargo install --locked --all-features --root="/usr/bin/" \
  --git https://github.com/ms-jpq/sad --branch senpai

What about stdin -> stdout

If you just want to edit the shell stream, I would recommend sd, it uses the same concept, but its more for in stream edits. sad was inspired by my initial usage of sd.

command1 | sd '<pattern>' '<replacement>' | command2

ripgrep with --replace also works

command1 | rg --passthru --replace '<replacement>' -- '<pattern>' | command2

Take note however, rg will exit 1, it it finds no matches.

Thank yous

Special thanks to MadeOfMagicAndWires for their generous contribution for maintaining the AUR package.

Bugs

Please file an issue if you see one <3