CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
darkvalance
darkvalance

Reputation: 430

vim add text to beginning of multiple lines excluding white space with substitution

I have the following paragraph:

1 sometexthere  
2     indented text
3     indented text
4     indented text

I would like to use vim's search and replace command to add some text right before indented text. For example:

1 sometexthere  
2     test: indented text
3     test: indented text
4     test: indented text

Is there a way to use vim's search and replace syntax to achieve the following results? I have tried commands like 2,4s/^/test: / but still can't figure out a way to strip off the whitespace.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 229

Answers (2)

Matt
Matt

Reputation: 15081

Matching leading whitespace and replacing it by itself:

%s/^\s\+/&test: /

Or matching lines by :global and editing them by :normal

g/^\s/normal! Itest:

Upvotes: 3

axwr
axwr

Reputation: 2236

Unless I am misunderstanding you question you can achieve this fairly simply like:

%s/    /\    test:/g

This gives the output you desire from the given input. For this though, i prefer to use a macro.

qq         # Begin recording the macro
/____      # Search for four spaces
4li        # Insert four characters to the right
test:      # Type the desired text
<ESC>q     # Exit insert mode and save the macro to the q register

Then to run this macro on the next indent go @q. Just repeat @q or @@ to keep running the macro until everything is indented.

Another alternative route, which is fairly readable, is to use the normal command.

/____                      # Search for the indent.
:'<,'> normal 0nitest:     # Inserts "test:" 4 characters right of the search result. you can replace the <,> with a range of course.

Upvotes: 2

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