Replace resulting in an identical file has unusal behaviour

[webstacker]

Hi, I wrongly assumed that given a successfully matching regex, the file would be changed, even if that change resulted in an identical file. However, if the change would result in an identical file, nothing happens and it returns an empty changes array. The empty changes array implies that nothing matched, even though it did.

I assume it does this for performance reasons? If possible, can it always replace, or even return the changes as if the they had been made? This might partly address #42

If the current behaviour is expected, a note in the docs would be really helpful. Thanks

[adamreisnz]

Hi @webstacker, thanks for your feedback. Yes it looks like #42 will address this issue, allowing you to check for matches instead of replacements.

I will try to free up some time in the coming weeks to look into adding some of these features and do another major release. Will add a note in the docs for the time being to address this.

[adamreisnz]

Actually I think it's already pretty well documented here: https://github.com/adamreisnz/replace-in-file#return-value

But I'll update that after we've made the changes.

[webstacker]

@adamreisnz I don't think I've been too clear, it's maybe the way we're looking at this...

I did read the docs but found them ambiguous:

If no replacements were made, the return array will be empty.

I assumed that if there were no replacements then there must have been no matches, but this isn't the case. Maybe another way to say it is; why are replacements resulting in identical results treated differently?

If the behaviour was consistent e.g. Any time there is a match, the replacement is made, then #42 wouldn't be an issue.

Hope that makes sense.

[adamreisnz]

Can you post some code and file contents with an example to clarify?

[adamreisnz]

In 4.0.0, we return a results array for each file that was processed, along with a count of number of matches and number of replacements. That should cover this use case and allow you to figure out if any replacements were made and if a file was changed or not.