Re: Replace groups of dots by a tab

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 2:17:27 PM UTC-5, Tim Chase wrote:
> On 2018-02-02 10:45, Bernard Fay wrote:
> > I have a file with a bunch of lines like the following one:
> >
> > AAE ..........................................Above Aerodrome
> > Elevation
> >
> > I would like to replace the dots by a single tab.
> >
> > I tried the following substitutions but it does not work.
> > %s/\.*/\t/
> > %s/[\.]*/\t/
>
> Because you're using "*" instead of "\+", it is likely finding the
> zero periods at the beginning of the line, transforming it into
>
> \tAAEE ......... Above Aerodrome Elevation
>
> What you likely want is to require more than one period with either
>
> %s/[.]\+/\t
>
> or
>
> %s/\.\+/\t
>
> If for some reason a period appears in the abbreviation on the left
> ("A.A.E. ....... Above Aerodrome Elevation"), you can require a
> minimum number of them:
>
> :%s/\.\{4,}/\t
>
> to require at least 4 consecutive periods for the replacement.
>
> Additionally, you might want to eat whitespace on either side of it
> too:
>
> :%s/\s*\.\{4,}\s*/\t
>
> just to clean it up a bit.
>
> -tim

Wonderful! Thanks tim

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