Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ECLA.USC.EDU!BEC.SHAPIN
From: BEC.SHAPIN@ECLA.USC.EDU (Ross Watkins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: How to cut and paste a column
Message-ID: <12384916270.13.BEC.SHAPIN@ECLA.USC.EDU>
Date: 24 Mar 88 16:56:58 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 45

Rick Allard asks:
>   Has anybody found the need and the solution
>   to cutting a column out of a multicolumn
>   area of characters, a table?  Any Display
>   Manager Jockeys that can help, I'd like to
>   [unreadable...I think it said "buy them lunch"]

I'm hardly a DM Jock, but I have been squeezing DM for awhile, trying 
to get it to look more like EMACS; we have the stuff from MIT, but
I haven't had time to get it up and working.

To cut a rectangular are out of any text file, first mark the top-left
corner, then cursor down to the bottom-right.  Everything in between
will reverse-video, including the stuff outside your rectangle that
you don't want, but don't worry.  Now use the DM command "XD -R",
which will cut the rectangular section from the text, and hold it in
the paste buffer.  The inverse operation--pasting a column into the
middle of a table--is done with the companion command "XP -R" (don't
use the PASTE key!); bear in mind that if things don't line up exactly, 
you will have some reformatting to do.

I use the rectangular-cut command often when coding: to delete the 
first four spaces from 20 lines in a row, say, as when removing a FOR 
loop or other level of code.  I use it so much, in fact, that I have 
bound the sequence to CNTL-W (for cut-window) with the DM command 
"KD ^W XD -R KE", in order to have it easily accessible.  The 
corresponding copy command is "XC -R", but I have never used it.

Also note that by appending "-F pathname" to these DM commands, the 
resulting cut/copy/paste can be written/written/read to/to/from the 
pathname specified.  Please also note that the "rectangle switch" need 
not be present to make use of this pathname redirection switch.  Indeed, 
it is in precisely this manner that "-F pathname" finds its greatest 
utility for me--and a few more bindings:

  cut to a file:        "KD ^D XD -F &'Cut and copy to Pathname: ' KE" 
  copy to a file:       "KD ^C XC -F &'Copy to Pathname: ' KE" 
  paste from a file:    "KD ^I XP -F &'Insert from Pathname: ' KE" 

I find the prompts useful for remebering what I bound to what, and 
in case of typing error.  Play with these until you are comfortable 
with them. 

Enjoy, Ross
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