String Conversion (strconv)

String functions are used in computer programming languages to manipulate a string or query information about a string (some do both). Most programming languages that have a string datatype will have some string functions although there may be other low-level ways within each language to handle strings directly. In object-oriented languages, string functions are often implemented as properties and methods of string objects. In functional and list-based languages a string is represented as a list (of character codes), therefore all list-manipulation procedures could be considered string functions. However such languages may implement a subset of explicit string- specific functions as well.

— From WikiPedia String Functions, by Programming Languages

Features

Command	Description
replace	Replace a text string with another
capitalize	Convert a text string into a capitalized version of its words
uppercase	Convert all the characters in a text string into their capital form
lowercase	Convert all the characters in a text string into their lower form
md5	Calculate the md5 hash of the string specified
sha1	Calculate the sha1 hash of the string specified
chunk	Splits a string into smaller pieces of the same size
length	Returns the length of the string specified
b64enc	Encodes data with MIME base64
b64dec	Decodes data encoded with MIME base64
urldec	Decodes URL-encoded string
urlenc	Encodes URL string with their correspondent hex digits
rotate	Perform a rotation on a string by the value specified

Usage

Replace all occurrences of the character on the left with the character on the right in STDIN. Example, replace all occurrences of the letter o with the special character @ and then replace all occurrences of the letter l with the letter x.

$ echo "Hello, World" | strconv replace o:@ l:x
Hexx@, W@rxd

Capitalize the first letter of every word.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv capitalize
Hello, World

Convert all characters in the text to upper case.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv uppercase
HELLO, WORLD

Convert all characters in the text to lower case.

$ echo "HELLO, WORLD" | strconv lowercase
hello, world

Print the MD5 hash of the entire text.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv md5
e4d7f1b4ed2e42d15898f4b27b019da4

Print the SHA1 hash of the entire text.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv sha1
b7e23ec29af22b0b4e41da31e868d57226121c84

Print the length of the entire text.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv length
12

Encode entire text as Base64.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv b64enc
aGVsbG8sIHdvcmxk

Decode Base64-encoded text.

$ echo "aGVsbG8sIHdvcmxk" | strconv b64dec
hello, world

Encode URL to prepare submission of data using GET requests.

$ echo "https://cixtor.com/?foo=bar&lorem=ipsum" | strconv urlenc
https%3A%2F%2Fcixtor.com%2F%3Ffoo%3Dbar%26lorem%3Dipsum

Decode URL encoded to safely transmit data using GET requests.

$ echo "https%3A%2F%2Fcixtor.com%2F%3Ffoo%3Dbar%26lorem%3Dipsum" | strconv urldec
https://cixtor.com/?foo=bar&lorem=ipsum

Rotate text N characters to the right, where N is any natural number.

$ echo "hello, world" | strconv rotate 13
uryyb, jbeyq

$ echo "uryyb, jbeyq" | strconv rotate 13
hello, world

Aliases

Add these aliases to your ~/.profile file to maximize usability.

alias replace="strconv replace"
alias capitalize="strconv capitalize"
alias upper="strconv uppercase"
alias lower="strconv lowercase"
alias md5="strconv md5"
alias sha1="strconv sha1"
alias len="strconv length"
alias b64enc="strconv b64enc"
alias b64dec="strconv b64dec"
alias urldec="strconv urldec"
alias urlenc="strconv urlenc"
alias rotate="strconv rotate"