striker wrote:
I have a large fixed width database file that I would like to delimit
with commas. For example here are 2 lines of the file:
210044012123540759F181012004103C 14 29847.3741091 4280 5070 42789
28529 2769 2449 3320
2948 05121
210044012112140906F091012004101J 2 11048.495609 5559 9973 5180
9974 5680 94572
5451 06148
length of field1 = 8
length of field2 = 2
length of field3 = 3 and so on through 35 fields.
I was going to use a simple regex replacement like:
:%s/\(.\{8}\)\(.\{2}\)\(.\{3}\)/\1,\2,\3,/g This does work when
only replacing a small number of fields. I get 2 errors when I source a
file with the command for all 35 fields. The errors are:
E51: Too many \(
E476: Invalid command
Two questions because of all of this:
1) What is the limit of \( that can be used?
2) Is there a better way of delimiting the file?
***note*** Since this is a fixed width data base file, I can import it
into a database as is. I am only doing this as a learning experience.
Thanks,
Kevin
You can only refer to nine \( \) pairs by means of \1..\9, so I guess
the limit is 9; but you can use \%( \) (which is marginally faster) if
you don't need to refer to it in the "replace to" part of the
:substitute. Or you can do the substitute in several waves.
Best regards,
Tony.
