Is it possible to use find and replace on a wildcard string in VIM?

vim wildcard replace
dwcanillas picture dwcanillas · Apr 26, 2012 · Viewed 38.2k times · Source

For example, I have a bunch of values with a common prefix and postfix, such as:

fooVal1Bar;

fooVal2Bar;

fooVal3Bar;

In this case, all variable names begin and end with foo and end with Bar. I want to use a find and replace using the random variable names found between foo and Bar. Say I already have variables Val1, Val2, Val3, and Val1Old, Val2Old, and Val3Old Defined. I would do a find a replace, something along the lines of:

:%s/foo<AnyString>Bar/foo<AnyString>Bar = <AnyString> + <AnyString>Old

This would result in:

fooVal1Bar = Val1 + Val1Old;

fooVal2Bar = Val2 + Val2Old;

fooVal3Bar = Val3 + Val3Old;

I hope it's clear what I want to do, I couldn't find anything in vim help or online about replacing with wildcard strings. The most I could find was about searching for wildcard strings.

Answer

Ren&#233; Nyffenegger picture René Nyffenegger · Apr 26, 2012

I believe you want

:%s/foo\(\w\+\)Bar/& = \1 + \1\Old/

explanation:

\w\+ finds one or more occurences of a character. The preceeding foo and following Bar ensure that these matched characters are just between a foo and a Bar.

\(...\) stores this characters so that they can be used in the replace part of the substitution.

& copies what was matched

\1 is the string captured in the \(....\) part.

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