String Replacement Methods: Literal Replacement, Markers, and Delimiters

A String Replacement Overview is here.

Note that the next three methods all use StringReplace. This is in keeping with my principle that the fastest way to learn Mathematica is to become a power user of its 70 or so core functions. In String processing, for instance, StringInsert is not a function you need to know. Instead learn to use the more powerful and robust function, StringReplace.

Literal Replacement

Literal replacement works by using StringReplace to find a literal substring within a String and substitute another substring for it. Literal replacement is very simple and easy to use.

string1="The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy white dog.";

StringReplace[string1,{"fox"->"mink","dog"->"pecadillo"}]

The quick brown mink jumped over the lazy white pecadillo.

Markers

Using markers to indicate the replacement position can improve code legibility. Use StringReplace to replace just the marked text.

string2="The quick brown <animal1> jumped over the lazy white <animal2>.";

StringReplace[string2,{"<animal1>"->"mink","<animal2>"->"pecadillo"}]

The quick brown mink jumped over the lazy white pecadillo.

Delimiters

Use StringReplace to replace text between the delimiters. This is very useful when you want to replace a lot of text in a document, especially in a long document. However, the new function StringTemplate is a superior method overall.

sitemapTemplate="<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>
<urlset xmlns=\"http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9\">
<!-- put list of urls here with a line feed after each one -->
</urlset>";

urls="<url><loc>http://www.blah.net/page1.html</loc></url>
<url><loc>http://www.blah.net/page2.html</loc></url>";

Note that you use StringExpression (shorthand "~~") to concatenate quoted Strings with Blanks in the String to be found by StringReplace, but you must use StringJoin (shorthand "<>") if you concatenate different Strings in the replacement String.

sitemapTemplateWithURLs=StringReplace[sitemapTemplate,"<!-- put list"~~urlsList__~~"each one -->"->urls]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url><loc>http://www.blah.net/page1.html</loc></url>
<url><loc>http://www.blah.net/page2.html</loc></url>
</urlset>