Vim regex grouping
Posted on Tue 28 July 2020 in dev-journal
Wrote a regex in vim today that used a grouping in the find and replace. Needed to update 936 instances..
From a statement that calls a custom module function
{% if entry.getEnableVal('conveyorDevToggle') == 1 to be a
simple statement.. {% if entry.conveyorDevToggle %}
This is the regex used:
:%s/\ventry.getEnableVal\('(\w+)'\) \=\= 1/entry.\1/gc
The key notes are:
\v
:help \v
Use of "\v" means that after it, all ASCII characters except '0'-'9', 'a'-'z',
'A'-'Z' and '_' have special meaning: "very magic"
Use of "\V" means that after it, only a backslash and terminating character
(usually / or ?) have special meaning: "very nomagic"
Grouping
s:\(\w\+\)\(\s\+\)\(\w\+\):\3\2\1:
where \1 holds the first word, \2 - any number of spaces or tabs in between and \3 - the second word. How to decide what number holds what pair of \(\) ? - count opening "\(" from the left.
Using the above documentation the regex was constructed with the (\w+)
grouping being used with the \1 group
:%s/\ventry.getEnableVal\('(\w+)'\) \=\= 1/entry.\1/gc