Hi MBR:
To me, the search and replace syntax you're using is incorrect. Or perhaps \&
is an undocumented feature -- you did mention that it sometimes works.
I would search for "\([A-Z]\)" and replace with "SPC\1".
HTH
- Ray
-----Original Message-----
Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 19:15:40 -0400
From: MBR <m...@arlsoft.com>
To: help-gnu-em...@gnu.org, help-emacs-windows@gnu.org
Subject: [h-e-w] Why do replace commands sometimes not work?
-snip-
The purpose of this part of the macro is to turn CamelCase into space-separated
words.
M-< ;; Go to beginning of narrowed buffer
M-x replace-regexp RET
[A-Z] RET ;; Find any capital letter
C-q SPC \& RET ;; Replace it with a space followed by itself
M-< ;; Go to beginning of narrowed buffer
C-d ;; Delete the unwanted space before the
first letter
So, if the narrowed portion of the buffer contains:
"JohnJacobJingleheimerschmidt"
after running this portion of the macro, it should contain:
"John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt"
Instead, when run in Emacs 23, the result is:
"ohnJacobJingleheimerschmidt"
which is exactly what you'd expect if the M-x replace-regexp failed to do the
replacement that it should have. -snip-
