Shortest Pattern Match

2006-07-12 Thread Bob Fleming 
Hi all, 

I believe vim carries out greedy pattern matching, i.e. the longest pattern
found will be used. Is there a way of performing shortest matching ?

As an example, I have the following text:

fe fi fo united kingdom fe fi fo 0911 209 30 30

and I want to delete everything up to the word united so I used :%s/.*fo //
but this deleted everything up to 0911.

Thanks in advance, 

Bob

Re: Shortest Pattern Match

2006-07-12 Thread Jürgen Krämer 

Hi,

Bob Fleming wrote:
 Hi all, 
 
 I believe vim carries out greedy pattern matching, i.e. the longest pattern
 found will be used. Is there a way of performing shortest matching ?
 
 As an example, I have the following text:
 
 fe fi fo united kingdom fe fi fo 0911 209 30 30
 
 and I want to delete everything up to the word united so I used :%s/.*fo //
 but this deleted everything up to 0911.

have a look at :help /\{

  :%s/.\{-\}fo //

Another way to remove everything in front of united is

  :%s/.*\zeunited//

for the last united on the line and

  :%s/.\{-}\zeunited//

for the first united (see :help /\ze for the special meaning of \ze)

Regards,
Jürgen

-- 
Jürgen Krämer  Softwareentwicklung
HABEL GmbH  Co. KGmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hinteres Öschle 2  Tel: +49 / 74 61 / 93 53 - 15
78604 Rietheim-WeilheimFax: +49 / 74 61 / 93 53 - 99

RE: [Bulk] Re: Shortest Pattern Match

2006-07-12 Thread Bob Fleming 

Perfect, thanks very much. 

-Original Message-
From: Jürgen Krämer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wed 12 July 2006 09:14
To: vim mailing list
Subject: [Bulk] Re: Shortest Pattern Match


Hi,

Bob Fleming wrote:
 Hi all, 
 
 I believe vim carries out greedy pattern matching, i.e. the longest
pattern
 found will be used. Is there a way of performing shortest matching ?
 
 As an example, I have the following text:
 
 fe fi fo united kingdom fe fi fo 0911 209 30 30
 
 and I want to delete everything up to the word united so I used :%s/.*fo
//
 but this deleted everything up to 0911.

have a look at :help /\{

  :%s/.\{-\}fo //

Another way to remove everything in front of united is

  :%s/.*\zeunited//

for the last united on the line and

  :%s/.\{-}\zeunited//

for the first united (see :help /\ze for the special meaning of \ze)

Regards,
Jürgen

-- 
Jürgen Krämer  Softwareentwicklung
HABEL GmbH  Co. KGmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hinteres Öschle 2  Tel: +49 / 74 61 / 93 53 - 15
78604 Rietheim-WeilheimFax: +49 / 74 61 / 93 53 - 99