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From: grahj@gagme.chi.il.us (jim graham)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: A vi question
Keywords: substitute, vi
Message-ID: <648@gagme.chi.il.us>
Date: 14 Aug 90 01:59:11 GMT
References: <1990Aug12.194738.7902@ecn.purdue.edu> <860@ai.cs.utexas.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: GAGME - Public Access UNIX of Niles, Illinois, USA, Earth
Lines: 19

> I need to do the following in vi.
>[ Change text like "ccccoooossss" to "cos" ]

If you are trying to get rid of the attempt at BOLD text that nroff uses
(i.e., backspacing and re-typing the same character over and over again),
there is a better solution....  There is a program called ``pep'' that
resides on a number of the machines that archive sources for UN*X, that
will filter out all of this nonsense for you.  If the original file is called
foo.txt, you would do something like this:

   pep < foo.txt > foo.new
   mv foo.new foo.txt       (if you like foo.new....)  

NOTE:  I include the part about ``if you like foo.new'' because I'm not sure
       if you need to use just ``pep'' or ``pep -b''.  I know one of those
       works perfectly (IF THIS IS WHAT YOU HAD IN MIND).

Hope this helps.....
Jim Graham