What is the best way to add some characters at the start and end of each line? something like quotes etc? Can it be done using Vim, or some other way?
+7
A:
In vim, you can do
:%s/^\(.*\)$/"\1"/
s/regex/replace/is vim command for search n replace.%makes it apply throughout the file^and$denotes start and end of the line respectively.(.*)captures everything in between.(and)needs to be escaped in vim regexes.\1puts the captured content between two quotes.
Amarghosh
2010-07-10 10:33:34
Thanks.. that worked like a breeze! and thanks again for the very good explaination..
Myth
2010-07-10 10:42:03
@Myth Add a `c` at the end to make it prompt for each line: you can hit y/n to replace or skip the line `:%s/^\(.*\)$/"\1"/c`
Amarghosh
2010-07-10 10:51:27
Thats quite handy.. can you point me to some good resources to learn regx ? Sorry for the diversion from the main subject.
Myth
2010-07-10 11:20:21
I learned from [this tutorial](http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html). Check out this [SO question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3193977/id-love-to-learn-regular-expressions-what-would-you-suggest-me-to-start-off-wit/3194013#3194013) and the one it is marked as a duplicate of for more links. [Expresso](http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm) is quite useful.
Amarghosh
2010-07-10 11:37:48
+1
A:
better util would be sed (especially if you need to script it)
cat foo.txt | sed s/^\(.*\)$/"\1"/g
Mainguy
2010-07-10 15:11:44
+7
A:
simpler:
%s/.*/"&"
Explanation: By default, a pattern is interpreted as the largest possible match, so .* is interpreted as the whole line, with no need for ^ and $. And while \(...\) can be useful in selecting a part of a pattern, it is not needed for the whole pattern, which is represented by & in the
substitution. And
the final / in a search or substitution is not needed unless something else follows; though leaving it out could be considered laziness. (If so, I'm lazy.)
George Bergman
2010-07-11 02:23:46
+1
A:
The two answers suggesting %s are perfect, and I expect you'll learn to love %s and use it often. But if you find yourself wanting to surround other blocks of text frequently, you owe it to yourself to check out the surround.vim plugin, which would allow you to do what you asked for with the following four keystrokes: yss" And there are many other useful built-in surround targets. For example, to surround the current word with double quotes: csw", and to change the surrounding single quotes to double quotes: cs'".
surround.vim is one of my favorite vim plugins, and I use it daily.
nicholas a. evans
2010-07-15 18:42:28
`yss"` is actually five keystrokes, if you count the <shift> for the double quote. ;-) It's still a whole lot faster than typing out a regular expression.
nicholas a. evans
2010-07-16 14:22:02