deepreplace: Find and replace string segments in nested objects

Summary

newdata = deepreplace(data,match,replacement) replaces all occurrences of substring(s) match with replacement at any level of the nested object data.

Inputs

• data can be of any class but will only undergo replacement when it contains text, i.e. string array or character vector, at any hierarchical level.
• match must be a text or pattern array.
• replacement must be text. It must be the same size as match or be scalar.

Output

• newdata is the same class as data. All nonoverlapping occurrences of each element of match in data are replaced by the corresponding element of replacement.

Examples

DATA = { '2022-12-8', 5; '2022-12-9', 9 };
MATCH = [ "-", "2022" ];
REPLACEMENT = [ "/", "22" ];
deepreplace( DATA, MATCH, REPLACEMENT )
-----
ans = 2×2 cell array:
    {'22/12/8'} {[5]}
    {'22/12/9'} {[9]}

username = 'Default';
Directories.matlab = { 'C:\Program Files\MATLAB', ...
    'C:\Users\<user>\Documents\MATLAB' };
Directories.labrat = 'C:\Users\<user>\Documents\LABRAT';
Directories = deepreplace( Directories, '<user>', username )
-----
Directories = struct with fields:
    matlab: { 'C:\Program Files\MATLAB', ...
                'C:\Users\Default\Documents\MATLAB' }
    labrat: 'C:\Users\Default\Documents\LABRAT'

More examples available in examples.mlx / examples.pdf.

Compatibility, License and Citation

Created in 2022b. Compatible with MATLAB release 2019b and later. Compatible with all platforms.

Published under MIT License (see LICENSE.txt).

Please cite George Abrahams (https://github.com/WD40andTape/fieldfun, https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeabrahams).