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From: wohler@sri-spam.istc.sri.com (Bill Wohler)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Re: regular expressions and operations other than replace
Message-ID: <8356@sri-spam.istc.sri.com>
Date: Sat, 18-Oct-86 17:23:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-spam.8356
Posted: Sat Oct 18 17:23:03 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 20:55:46 EDT
References: <1168@peregrine.UUCP>
Reply-To: wohler@sri-spam.UUCP (Bill Wohler)
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park
Lines: 34

mike,

i had the same problem you did when i switch to gnuemacs,
but, since gnuemacs is fully extensible, i wrote my first
lisp function (no laughter from the peanut gallery, please).
in addition, emacs offers a richer regular expression set
than vi does.  check it out!

anyway, here's the function that will get you started.  load
it in and bind it to a key if you wish.  currently you have to
set the region around the section of text that you want to
massage and then set your point at the beginning of the
region.  therefore, if you wanted to do the whole file, you
could use C-x h to select the whole buffer.

it works fine, but could be more elegant.  for instance, it
should work on the region even if you aren't at the
beginning of it. if any of you can improve on it, please be
sure to share your findings with us. thanks!

    					--bw
    ----- 8< re-relace-region follows -----
(defun re-replace-region () nil
  (interactive)
  (setq old (read-input "Replace string: " nil))
  (setq new (read-input "with: " nil))
  (while (< (dot) (mark))
    (re-search-forward old (+ (mark) 1) nil)
    (setq end (dot))
    (re-search-backward old)
    (delete-region (dot) end)
    (insert new)
  )
)