Re: systematic replacement of text

On 9 April 2014, Natércia Fernandes <natercia@eq.uc.pt> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In a file with many occurrences of something like this:
>
> \xxx{a variable number of words that I want to delete}{a variable (diferent)
> number of words that I want to keep}
>
> I would like to eliminate at once in all occurrences in the file the following:
> \xxx
> the two pairs of {}
> the content of the first {} independently of its size (which can be different
> from occurrence to occurrence)
>
> That is, I want to keep only the content of the second pair of {} above.
> In this case, I would like to obtain:
> a variable (diferent) number of words that I want to keep
>
> \xxx{argument 1}{argument 2} can exist more than once in a line, but never
> will exist a \xxx in the arguments of another \xxx.
>
> If "argument 1" and "argument 2" were kept in all occurrences, I could solve
> my problem with something like this:
> :1,$ s/\\xxx{argument 1}{argument 2}/argument 2/g
> but my problem is that argument 1 and argument 2 are different from occurrence
> to occurrence.
> Don't know if this info is needed or not: both argument 1 and/or argument 2
> can contain the symbols \ {}.
>
> Can someone help me?

Write a macro. Make it recursive to get all matches. Let % take
care of balancing { and } and handle \ escapes.

qqq - clear out register q
qq - start recording a macro in register q
/\\xxx\> - search for \xxx
^M - press enter to finish the search
dt{ - delete to the next {
d% - delete to the matching } (deletes {argument 1})
l - move right
"x - in register x...
y - ... yank...
]} - ... to the matching } (saves argument 2)
h - move right
d% - delete to the matching } (deletes {argument 2})
"xP - paste from register x (pastes argument 2)
@q - make the macro invoke itself
q - finish macro recording.

Now run @q and watch.

/lcd

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