file-editor

Crates.iofile-editor
lib.rsfile-editor
version0.2.0
created_at2025-04-26 05:00:28.74337+00
updated_at2025-04-29 17:17:02.55521+00
descriptionClean, elegant API for creating and editing text files
homepage
repositoryhttps://github.com/davidwilliam/file-editor
max_upload_size
id1649894
size53,012
David William Silva (davidwilliam)

documentation

README

file-editor

CI
codecov
crates.io
docs.rs

Clean, chain-friendly text-file editing for Rust • edition 2024 • v0.2.0

file-editor is a zero-dependency library that makes it painless to create, modify, and query UTF-8 text files.
All mutating methods return &mut self, so edits compose naturally:

use file_editor::Editor;

fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    Editor::create("notes.txt")?               // new (or truncate existing)
        .append("Rust 🦀 is fun\n")
        .prepend("# My Notes\n")
        .insert_after("# My Notes", "========\n", true)
        .replace("fun", "blazingly fast")
        .save()?;                              // explicit flush to disk
    Ok(())
}

Opt-in regex power

By default file-editor has no dependencies.
Activate the regex feature to let every pattern-taking method accept a compiled [regex::Regex]:

file-editor = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["regex"] }

use file_editor::Editor;
use regex::Regex;

fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    let re = Regex::new(r"token=\w+").unwrap();
    Editor::open("config.env")?
        .mask(&re, "***")      // redact every `token=…`
        .save()?;
    Ok(())
}

Feature table

Verb Method(s) Notes
Create / open Editor::create, Editor::open create truncates an existing file
Rename rename Renames on disk & updates the internal path
Prepend / append prepend, append
Insert before / after insert_before, insert_after same_indent flag preserves indentation
Replace marker replace_marker Optional same_indent
Search pattern find_lines Returns 1-based line numbers
Erase / replace / mask erase, replace, mask Operate on all occurrences in the buffer
Save save Writes only when the buffer is dirty

Planned > streaming mode, companion CLI…

Installation

# stable crate (no regex):
cargo add file-editor

# with regex support:
cargo add file-editor --features regex

Requires Rust 1.85 or newer (edition 2024).

Workflow

Task Command
Build cargo build
Run tests & doctests cargo test
Format cargo fmt --all
Lint (deny warnings) cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
Coverage (HTML + terminal) cargo llvm-cov --workspace --open
(install once: cargo install cargo-llvm-cov)
Generate docs cargo doc --no-deps --open

CI runs the same commands on every PR (see .github/workflows/ci.yml).

Runnable examples

Everything under examples/ writes into examples/sandbox/ (ignored by Git):

Example Demonstrates
basic.rs End-to-end mini workflow
create.rs create + append
open_rename.rs open + rename
prepend.rs, append.rs Header / footer insertion
insert_before.rs Block insertion above a marker
insert_after.rs Block insertion below a marker
replace_marker.rs In-place marker replacement
find_lines.rs Pattern search
erase.rs Deleting fragments
replace.rs, mask.rs Global replacements / masking 
cargo run --example insert_after

Contributing

  1. Fork & clone
  2. cargo fmt --check && cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
  3. Add or update tests in tests/ (use the tempfile crate)
  4. Open a PR describing what changed and why

All contributions are released under the MIT license.

License

Copyright © 2025
Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Commit count: 20

cargo fmt