🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun18.215011.16306@informix.com> billd@infmx.informix.com (William Daul) writes:
>Given a file looking like this:
>
>12345678-1-2345678-2-2345678-3
>blah blah blah stuff     more
>45345454 blah blah more stuff
>44 55 66 gg tt hh rr fgjgfkjk
>.
>.
>.
>last line big deal...the end
>
>
>What if I wanted to remove everything between
>column 10 and column 20 on ALL lines.  Can it
>be done in vi?

Sure.  Everything can be done in vi!  Not that you would want to :-)

Here are three suggestions:

1. You may be happier using the "cut" utility, if your machine has it.
To retain columns 1-10 and 20 and up; i.e., to remove columns 11-19, do:

cut -c1-10,20- oldfile >newfile

2. If you insist in doing it with vi, here it is:

:%s/\(..........\)........./\1/

3. If you feel ambitious enough, you can call "cut" within vi, as in:

:% !cut -c1-10,20-

Enjoy!

--
Rouben Rostamian                          Telephone: (301) 455-2458
Department of Mathematics and Statistics  e-mail:
University of Maryland Baltimore County   bitnet: rostamian@umbc.bitnet
Baltimore, MD 21228,  U.S.A.              internet: rouben@math9.math.umbc.edu