Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bbs!ddsw1!dattier
From: dattier@ddsw1.MCS.COM (David W. Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: vi: search for or go to a line not of length n
Summary: the hard way?
Message-ID: <1990Sep26.233251.14870@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 26 Sep 90 23:32:51 GMT
References: <lee.654252627@chsun1> <gazyNEr0BwwZIof1o_@transarc.com>
Reply-To: dattier@ddsw1.MCS.COM (David W. Tamkin)
Organization: Contributor Account at ddsw1, Wheeling, Illinois
Lines: 17

Dan_Bloch@TRANSARC.COM wrote in <gazyNEr0BwwZIof1o_@transarc.com>:

|     :v/^..............................................$/s/.*/&<TAG>/
| 
| That should be 61 dots.  I put in fewer in the interest of having it all
| fit on one line.  What this does is finds every line that isn't exactly
| 61 characters long and put <TAG> on the end of it.  Then you can search
| through the file for normally for <TAG>, take whatever actions you want,
| and delete all the <TAG>s when you're done.  Obviously, you can use any
| handy marker instead of <TAG>.

Wouldn't 
    :v/^.....{sixty-one periods total}....$/s/$/<TAG>/
make the same substitution?

David Tamkin  Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  708 518 6769  312 693 0591
MCI Mail: 426-1818  GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN  CIS: 73720,1570   dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com