(g)vim replace regex

Question

I'm looking for a regex that will change sth. like this:

print "testcode $testvar \n";

in

printnlog("testcode $testvar \n");

I tried %s/print\s*(.\{-});/printnlog(\1);/g but gvim says

print\s*(.\{-});

doesn't match.

Where is my fault? Is it ok to use '*' after '\s' because later '{-};' will stop the greed?

Thanks in advance.

+1. for {-}, I forgot about that in Vim

MBO
– MBO

2009-12-04 14:30:33 +00:00
Commented Dec 4, 2009 at 14:30 — MBO
– MBO, Commented Dec 4, 2009 at 14:30
Found a nice site for regex in vim -> vimregex.com enjoy

Milde
– Milde

2009-12-04 14:33:59 +00:00
Commented Dec 4, 2009 at 14:33 — Milde
– Milde, Commented Dec 4, 2009 at 14:33

MBO · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-04 14:25:26Z

7

In vim you have to prepend (, ) and | with backslash, so try

:%s/print\s*\(.\{-}\);/printnlog(\1);/g

answered Dec 4, 2009 at 14:25

MBO

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4 Comments

Milde Over a year ago

can't believe I forgot to escape the brackets :) your regex works perfectly fine

Adam Neal Over a year ago

Thanks MBO, deleted the original and fixed it below!

Adam Neal Over a year ago

Unless you use \v, then you don't have to escape everything - briancarper.net/blog/vim-regexes-are-awesome

Milde Over a year ago

+1 for \v, it will save (me) a lot of backslashes in the future

Adam Neal · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-04 14:44:45Z

4

MBO's answer works great, but sometimes I find it easier to use the "very magic" option \v so I don't have to escape everything; makes the regex a little more readable.

2 Comments

Maxim Veksler Over a year ago

Great, I was searching for such feature.

Milde Over a year ago

voted up your comment above, because I agree, it increases readability and saves you some time

kdgregory · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-04 14:25:14Z

0

While you can create capture groups (like you're doing), I think the easiest approach is to do the job in multiple steps, with very simple regexes and "flag" words. For example:

:%s/print "testcode.*/printnlog(XXX&XXX);/
:%s/XXXprint //
:%s/;XXX//

In these examples, I use "XXX" to indicate boundaries that should later be trimmed (you can use anything that doesn't appear in your code). The ampersand (&) takes the entire match string and inserts it into the replacement string.

I don't know about other people, but I can type and execute these three regexes faster than I can think through a capture group.

answered Dec 4, 2009 at 14:25

kdgregory

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Comments

catchmeifyoutry · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-04 14:27:18Z

0

Is this sufficient for your needs?

%s/print\s*\("[^"]*"\)/printnlog(\1)

answered Dec 4, 2009 at 14:27

catchmeifyoutry

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1 Comment

Milde Over a year ago

this regex is ok also, but I already marked another answer as "accepted", not only because it was the first working regex, but it remembers to escape brackets in vim :)

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