From: Chris Carter <cdcarter@...>
Date: 2007-08-04T00:16:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Updating header in file

On 8/2/07, Jeffrey Bowen <ja_bowen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Let me try this in another way.  I have a file
> (test.txt) where each line contains comma separated
> values and I am using CSV to work though that stored
> file.  The first line of the file is a header used by
> the CSV program and as hash keys in the program that
> creates the file.
>
> What I am looking to do is update test.txt in two way.
>  First I add a line at the end of the file with
> today's values for each entry in the first line
> (header).  Like 1, 20, 300, etc.  Which I can do with
>
> file = File.open("test.tet")
> file.puts(x) #x being string with the comma separated
> values.
>
> Second I will sometimes find a need to add another
> header/hash key to the end of the first line.  That is
> replace the first line (header) with a new one.
>
> The only way that I can think of is to create a new
> file, enter a new first line and then move line 2
> thought the last line from file 1 into file 2 and then
> rename file 2 to file 1.
>
> I was hoping there was a way to replace the first line
> in a text file.
>
> Thanks Jeff
>
>
>

http://rubyreports.org/.  Ruport will let you parse in the file, do
all sorts of data manipulation (including everything you described)
and write it back out as csv.

-- 
Chris Carter
concentrationstudios.com
brynmawrcs.com