If anyone out there is old enough to remember the ISPF editor on IBM mainframes, then you know what I mean. For the rest of you ...
I am looking for a free editor which allows me to edit only particular columns of a text file (preferably only on a series of contiguous lines).
NotpePad++, Crimson Editor (which seems to be longer in development, alas), and UltraEdit (which is not free, alas), all claim a column mode, but that is only the ability to copy/paste rectangular areas of a text file.
While that is certainly nice, I want to he able to search/replace text and be able to restrict it to a a range or of contiguous columns, preferably also on a range of contiguous lines.
A poor example:
Tim likes beer
Toms likes beer very much
Bob does not like either beer or wine
Ann likes beer, and also wine (and the Oxford comma ;-)
and here is is again, with some line & column numbers:
1 2 3 4
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1 Tim likes beer
2 Toms likes beer very much
3 Bob does not like either beer or wine
4 Ann likes beer, and also wine
If I want to change all "beer" to "fish" between columns 10 and 20, the result would be (changes capitalized).
1 2 3 4
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1 Tim likes FISH
2 Toms likes FISH very much
3 Bob does not like either beer or wine<=== not changed, not between cols 10 & 20
4 Ann likes FISH, and also wine
As a bonus, I would like to also restrict it to certain rows, let's say rows 2 though 4, in which case, the result would be:
1 2 3 4
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1 Tim likes beer <== not changed, not between lines 2 and 4
2 Toms likes FISH very much
3 Bob does not like either beer or wine <== not changed, not between cols 10 & 20
4 Ann likes FISH, and also wine
Question: does anyone know of a (preferably) free Widows text editor which can do that?