Thank you (and Jürgen too), @@ is an easy first step for me. Next:
"Tim Chase" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] : Alternatively, problems can often be rephrased in terms of an Ex : command that uses the ":%s" or ":g"/":v" to perform changes : across the entire file. [...] : By changing : your thinking to exploit these commands, sometimes you can get : easy consistent changes without having to manually touch each bit : with a macro. I admit that I am currently more of a visual "n.n.nn.nn." kind of person. I should take some time to get into using Ex. If I may seek further guidance with a concrete example: While editing a file, I decide to rename "someIdentifier" to "someIdentifier_" - I will need to append the underscore to several (but usually not all) instances of the word. Starting in normal mode at the first instance of "someIdentifier", I would type: *ea_<ESC> But then I cannot use the "n.nn." routine to modify subsequent identifiers -- because the '.' will not apply the change at the end of the word. (I would have to type "ne.nne.") The same would happen if I want to rename "wonderfulFoo" to "wonderfulBar". I tend to type: *fFceBar<ESC> But then I cannot use "n.nn." to repeat (but maybe "n;.nn;."). So: I like using the n-dot pair of commands, but I can only take advantage of it if I rewrite the whole identifier. How would I use Ex or another approach to save me some typing during the process described above (for example repeatedly appending '_' to an identifier) ? And can this trick still be easily applied if only some instances of the identifiers are to be replaced ? Thanks ! Ivan [ wow... I'll be called a nuthead for asking such a question anywhere else on the net ... hopefully not here ;) ] ____________________________________________________________________________________ It's here! Your new message! Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/