🚀 go-pugleaf

jspence@cmptrc.lonestar.org (John Spence) writes:

>I do not know is vi is the editor to do this task in or not, but I would
>like to know if it can be done in vi.

>I would like to change a column position to a character string in a
>range of columns. For example, I would like to change column 63 in 
>lines 40 through 55 to the string "foobar". In a sense, this would be
>a insert command rather than a substitution command.

There may be a cleaner procedure out their, but this is the way I 
work with fixed fields.

First I construct the search pattern.  This starts with .'s out to the column
I want to play with.  In your case you might use O[ESC] to create a blank
line and then 63i.[ESC] to insert 63 .'s as column holders (I'm assuming
that you really do want to replace column 63 with foobar).  

...............................................................

Then, I use \( \) combinations to mark off the parts I want to save in
the replacement pattern.  It is importants to work from the right to 
the left because doing it from left to right will shift the .'s away
from their proper column positions. 

\(..............................................................\).


Then, I fill in the rest of the command.

:40,55s/^\(..............................................................\)./\1foobar/

Finally, I delete the command line into a named buffer ("pdd) 
and execute the buffer (@p).  If the command didn't do quite what I wanted,
I undo it (u), put it back into the file ("pP), edit it, and run it again.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kris Klindworth                    Internet: krisk@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Database Programmer                Phone   : (217)244-7120
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