uksed

uksed is a hypothetical cross-platform command-line text processing tool inspired by the Unix stream editor sed. It processes text streams and files using pattern-based substitutions and other editing commands, aiming for reliability, Unicode safety, and accessibility in the United Kingdom.

Origin and purpose: In educational and documentation contexts, uksed is used as an illustrative example of a modern extension to sed that includes Unicode support and locale-aware defaults. It is not an established standard tool, but a conceptual reference for discussions of text editing in tutorials and design notes.

Design and features: uksed provides Unicode-aware substitutions, in-place editing with automatic backups, dry-run mode, and a simple, readable syntax. It supports extended addressing, anchored and global substitutions, and multi-file editing. It also offers scripting capabilities and compatibility options to encourage adoption by users familiar with sed, while emphasizing safer defaults and clearer error reporting.

Usage: Basic substitution can be performed with uksed 's/old/new/g' input.txt > output.txt. For in-place editing, uksed -i 's/foo/bar/g' input.txt is used. It supports common sed expressions, including capturing groups and various pattern modifiers, and may offer configurable backup behavior to protect original data.

Availability and reception: Because uksed is primarily used in instructional contexts, real-world adoption is limited. It serves as a pedagogical example to discuss how modern text editors balance compatibility with locale considerations and user-friendly design. See also: sed, awk, perl.