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I have a function that changes the 6th caracter of a line to a dollar symbol ($).

I want it to be performed on several lines, so I naively did a "while" loop using a counter (as shown under).

But I have the feeling that there must be a much simpler, more "vim-esque" way to do that -- my function seems a bit complicated for such a simple task. Maybe I'm wrong, but I would appreciate any simplification/comments.

My current function is :

function! DollarSplit(nlines) let current_pos = getpos(".") let a:count = 0 while a:count < a:nlines normal! 6|r$j a:count += 1 endwhile call setpos(".", current_pos) endfunction
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2 Answers 2

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function! DollarSplit() range let current_pos = getpos(".") execute a:firstline . "," . a:lastline . "normal! 6|r$" call setpos(".", current_pos) endfunction

See :help function-range-example.

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  • Thanks for your answer, it is more in the spirit of what I was looking for, though @Nobe4's regexp was perfect too (and his explanations as well) Commented May 17, 2016 at 12:10
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You can use the following replace:

function! DollarSplit(nlines) let current_pos = getpos(".") execute ',+'.a:nlines.'s/^\(.\{5}\).\(.*\)/\1$\2/g' call setpos(".", current_pos) endfunction

Decomposing:

execute ' " prepare a command ,+ " the command will operate on lines from current to '.a:nlines.' " current+a:nlines s/^ " the command is a substitution, starting at start of line \(.\{5}\) " capture the first 5 characters into a group (1) . " match any 6th character \(.*\) " capture the remaining of the line into a group (2) /\1$\2 " replace by group 1 $ group 2 /g' " end the substitution

This will basically create two matching group, surrounding the char you want to replace, and then restore the two groups with a $ inside.

References:

  • :h ranges
  • :h substitute
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  • ... I was trying to explain the parts I understood and the part I did not in your regexp, thank you very much haha Commented May 17, 2016 at 10:56
  • do you understand everything now ? :) Commented May 17, 2016 at 10:57
  • I think so yes, thank you very much ! I did not know about the "groups" usage, it seems very useful. Two last little questions if you have time : 1. * means "all that remains in the line" ? 2. One can not add spaces inside the regexp I suppose (to make it more readable for a newbie like me) as they would be interpretated as litteral white spaces ? Commented May 17, 2016 at 11:07
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    * means any number of so .* means any number of anything. I'm not sure about the regex formatting, but once you grasp the concept it shouldn't be too hard to read ;) Commented May 17, 2016 at 11:09

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