12
votes
Accepted
Replace two strings with each other
For the interactive case query-replace-regexp (C-M-%) can do this, using the relatively unknown \, for the replacement.
C-M-% \(string1\)\|\(string2\)
\,(if (equal \& "string1") "string2" "...
- 1,914
12
votes
Accepted
How to apply arithmetic operators to query-replace-regex
\2 in your replacement is a string, and it needs to be a number in order to perform the division.
You could convert it to a number using string-to-number, but there's in-built shorthand for treating ...
- 5,245
9
votes
Accepted
Regexp replace to match a string, but not match a superstring
Try \_<Vector\_>. The \_< construct matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a symbol. \_> is the same, but at the end of a symbol. What is a "symbol" depends on the buffer's ...
- 29.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Find and remove consecutive duplicated words while ignoring case
You can query-replace-regexp as follows:
\(\b\w+\b\)\W+\1\b → \1
This means, match a whole word (\b\w+\b), followed by non word characters (\W+), followed by the first word (\1) and a word ending (\...
- 5,455
8
votes
Accepted
Query replace with different replacements
Assuming Bob is the first replacement:
M-% Adam RET Bob RET
y for all the consecutive Bob replacements
e to change the replacement string, to, e.g.: Chris RET
y for any further Chris replacements
etc....
- 51.2k
7
votes
Regexp replace to match a string, but not match a superstring
Another simple trick you can use is to match both Vector and VectorBase, and replace them both with VectorBase.
Vector\(Base\)? → VectorBase
More complicated cases can be handled by using elisp in ...
- 51.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Dired search and replace is throwing no results
As @phils said in a comment, Emacs 25.1 no longer uses dired-do-query-replace-regexp for Q. It uses dired-do-find-regexp-and-replace for Q.
(It shouldn't, IMHO, but it does.)
Try M-x dired-do-query-...
- 77.5k
6
votes
Accepted
How to remove empty lines of a selected region of code in Emacs?
Select what you want to change, or C-x h to select the whole buffer.
Then: M-x flush-lines RET followed by ^$ RET or ^[[:space:]]*$ RET
^[[:space:]]*$ contain the meta-characters:
^ for beginning of ...
- 6,521
6
votes
How do I search/replace with case sensitive search?
Use isearch (C-s), turn on case sensitivity (M-c) then launch replace (M-%) from there.
M-c runs the command isearch-toggle-case-fold
M-% runs the command isearch-query-replace
- 14.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Toggle string and regex replacement
Like Harald, I'm not sure what kind of answer you expect.
But FWIW, I think the best way to perform such operations is with:
C-s <string1> M-% <string2> RET
in which case the answer is ...
- 26.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Advanced search and replace
You are correct in that query-replace-regex (Ctrl+Meta+%) can do this. For the regular expression, you want \(fclose(f.)\); and your "to-string" you want if(\1!=0) return 1;
In the regular expression ...
- 3,221
5
votes
Accepted
Search/replace and replace within a block of selected text of buffer in spacemacs
Vanilla Emacs has query-replace and related commands, that stop successively at each match for your search pattern and ask whether you want to replace it, then move on to the next match. When the ...
- 77.5k
5
votes
Replace string in rectangular region?
C-x SPC turns on rectangle-mark-mode, activating the region as rectangular (noncontiguous).
Then you can use M-% (query-replace) to replace any string with another, within only the rectangle. You are ...
- 77.5k
4
votes
how to query-delete-duplicate-lines?
It seems to be too difficult to make the original delete-duplicate-lines behave in the way you want. Here's something that might do the job though:
(defun my/update-lines (bunches pos keep)
(cl-...
- 11.4k
4
votes
Regexp replace to match a string, but not match a superstring
One simple, very old-school way is to do multiple replacement passes:
Replace VectorBase by, say AAAA (some string with chars you're sure don't already occur somewhere).
Replace Vector by VectorBase.
...
- 77.5k
4
votes
Accepted
replacing regular expressions with querying on and functions on match
You might write the perform-replace version like this:
(perform-replace
"\\b\\([0-9]+\\)/\\([0-9]+\\)/\\([0-9]\\{4\\}\\)\\b"
(cons (lambda (&rest _)
(let ((data (list (string-to-number ...
- 51.2k
4
votes
Accepted
How to count number of replacements made by `query-replace`?
As mentioned by @db48x, indeed, reporting a bug would be a good thing to do, as I guess that docstring should say "DID cancel the call". Also, there might be a small chance that the function ...
- 7,805
3
votes
Help with `replace-regexp-in-string`, to replace only first instance in every line
C-hf replace-regexp-in-string actually covers this exact requirement (or it does in Emacs 25.3, at any rate).
To replace only the first match (if any), make REGEXP match up to \'
and replace a sub-...
- 51.2k
3
votes
Query-replace-regexp alternative capable of handling nested braces?
This is a situation where I'd prefer to use a macro. Start your macro by searching forward to the beginning of your match, then perform generalized actions using methods like forward|backward-sexp, ...
- 12.5k
3
votes
query-replace-regexp on specific lines
If you want to add a prefix of hello to all lines which start with a letter, you can use C-M-% ^\([a-zA-Z]\) hello \1
The idea is to use \(...\) to capture stuff and \1 to represent the first ...
- 1,914
3
votes
Accepted
Passing a string with substitutions to the "perform-replace" command
The way backslashes work is logical but you have to keep careful track of how many levels of backslash expansion are going on.
When you use "\\." as a regular expression, you're starting from the ...
3
votes
Difficulty with query-replace-regexp
To replace space and/or tab sequence followed by an asterisk to just an asterisk:
[ LiteralTabHere]+\*
*
That LiteralTabHere should be a literal tab char. Enter it by pressing C-q C-i.
You need the ...
- 1,766
3
votes
How do I get the old query-replace up-arrow functionality back?
If you upgrade to 26.1 you can set query-replace-from-to-separator to nil
25.1 NEWS:
*** 'query-replace' history is enhanced.
When 'query-replace' reads the FROM string from the minibuffer, ...
- 51.2k
3
votes
Accepted
What mode does the command `query-replace' activate?
query-replace is just a command, it is not a major or minor mode. Before the phase in which it prompts for what to do with each match, it has no special bindings and uses minibuffer-local-map (this is ...
- 4,812
3
votes
Accepted
Text substitution only in specific column of org table
You can select the column as a rectangular region using C-x SPC
(rectangle-mark-mode) and then M-% (query-replace) will be
limited to that rectangle.
- 4,812
3
votes
Query replace a copied string by another copied one
Avoiding window switching:
Copy string
Copy newstring
M-%C-yM-yRET
C-yC-u-1M-yRET
Or if you can get used to copy newstring before string:
Copy newstring
Copy string
M-%C-yRET
C-yM-yRET
And another ...
- 2,300
3
votes
Accepted
Make region(s) invisible (not evaluated) to query-replacy and similar commands
Yes. Set variable isearch-filter-predicate to a function that returns nil for the text that you want to ignore for search and query-replace.
(Set it back to its default value of isearch-filter-...
- 77.5k
3
votes
Accepted
How to perform query-replace inside mathematical expressions in latex
As suggested by @Drew, this can be achieved by setting isearch-filter-predicate appropriately. Indeed, the docstring for query-replace includes:
C-h f query-replace
...
Ignore read-only ...
- 7,465
3
votes
Accepted
Can Dired query replace use regular expression to rename a group of files?
I do M-% to start the regex file rename but it does not work.
M-% runs the command query-replace
C-M-% runs the command query-replace-regexp
I see that it does not like backslash as an escape ...
- 51.2k
3
votes
Automatically save files after multi-file search/replace
You could trigger save-buffer after the replace. I believe the following should work:
(add-hook 'replace-update-post-hook 'save-buffer)
- 1,248
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible