Possible to open and write to local files using javascript?

Question

At work I have to repeat this same process multiple times:

Open a certain Dreamweaver file.
Look for all <p> tags and replace then with <h1> tags.
Look for all </p> and replace with </h1>.
Look for the string 'Welcome' and replace with 'goodbye'.
Look for '0:01:00' and replace with '01:00'.
Copy everything in that file.
Create a new Dreamweaver file and paste everything in the new file.
Save the new file in a given directory and call it a certain name, which can be provided as a variable.

I don't need to run the JavaScript from a browser. It can be a JavaScript file which I just double click on the desktop.

Is it possible for me to do this with JavaScript / jQuery?

No I don't think you can. Why don't you use Dreamweavers find and replace function? — putvande
– putvande, Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 23:37
It's definitely possible using, e.g. node.js and various libraries, but that's way too much work. Much easier from the command line using, e.g. sed — Stephen Thomas
– Stephen Thomas, Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 23:39
it might also be possible using the browser, see gist.github.com/abicky/1089708 and developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Code_snippets/File_I_O. I would not recommend it though, it seems labourious. — Jorg
– Jorg, Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 23:41
@putvande because I need to do it for multiple files and even more files down the road. Would be easy if there is just a script which I can run which will go through all the files and do the same thing to all the files in, say a given directory. — user2817200
– user2817200, Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 1:42

vooD · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-24 01:01:58Z

There are many other programming languages that you could accomplish this task with but if you really want to use Javascript then you could do the following:

var fs = require('fs');

if(process.argv.length < 4) {
  console.log('Usage: node replace.js fromFilePath toFilePath');
  return;
}

from = process.argv[2];
to = process.argv[3];

fs.readFile(from, { encoding: 'utf-8' }, function (err, data) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('successfully opened file ' + from);
  var rules = {
    '<p>': '<h1>',
    '</p>': '</h1>',
    'Welcome': 'goodbye',
    '0:01:00': '01:00'
  };

  for(var index in rules) {
      console.log('Replacing ' + index + ' with ' + rules[index] + '...');
      data = data.replace(new RegExp(index, 'gi'), rules[index]);
      console.log('Done');
  }

  console.log("Result");
  console.log(data);

  console.log("Writing data to " + to);

  fs.writeFile(to, data, function (err) {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log('It\'s saved!');
  });

});

INSTRUCTIONS

Download node.js from here
Install it
Create a file in C:\replace.js (Win) or ~/replace.js (Mac OS)
Put the code from above in replace.js
Open cmd (Ctrl+R on Win) or Terminal (on Mac OS)
Type node C:\replace.js <fileToReadFrom> <fileToSaveTo> on Win or node ~/replace.js <fileToReadFrom> <fileToSaveTo> on Mac OS
Done

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