Replace lines with ( with :( by regex-replace

Question

I have such a snippets:

Exercise 2.32.  We can represent a set as a list of distinct elements, and we can represent the set of all subsets of the set as a list of lists. For example, if the set is (1 2 3), then the set of all subsets is (() (3) (2) (2 3) (1) (1 3) (1 2) (1 2 3)). Complete the following definition of a procedure that generates the set of subsets of a set and give a clear explanation of why it works:

(define (subsets s)
  (if (null? s)
      (list nil)
      (let ((rest (subsets (cdr s))))
        (append rest (map <??> rest)))))

Select them all and run regex-replace ^\(.*(\) → : \1

The result I expected is

Nevertheless, it proved to be:

Whats' the problem with my usage?

Answer 1

. matches any single character except a newline, so ^.*( matches from line beginning till (, thus all lines besides the empty line matches. Don't forget the first line contains (:

Exercise 2.32.  ... For example, if the set is (1 2 3), ...

You should change . into \s- (it matches any whitespace character, you can also just use space character).

However, I always use C-x r t (M-x string-rectangle) to prepend a common prefix to multiple lines.