Simple regex question (vim search/replace)

Question

How do I specify that there are several options for a string in a search? For example, I want to find any combination that start with either jspPar , btn or jspAtt that ends with the letter K .

Also - I need to replace it with a string depending on the original prefix. for example, if the prefix was jspPar I need to replace it with the letter P . (and, let's say, B and A for btn and jspAtt accordingaly).

Answer 1

Is

\(jsPar\|btn\|jspAtt\)[^ \t]*K

what you are looking for?

The \\(jsPar\\|btn\\|jspAtt\\) says “at this point, match any of these alternatives”, then [^ \\t]* says “at this point, match any amount (incl. zero) of space or tab characters”, and K of course means “at this point match a K”.

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For your added question could do something like this:

%s/\(jsPar\|btn\|jspAtt\)[^ \t]*\zsK/\=submatch(1) == 'jsPar' ? 'P' : submatch(1) == 'btn' ? 'B' : 'A' /g

(The \\zs says “consider the match to have started at this point” so only the “K” will be replaced.)

But I would only do that if I had to do the substitution in a single pass. Otherwise I'd just run three s/// s:

%s/jspAtt[^ \t]*\zsK/A/g
%s/jsPar[^ \t]*\zsK/P/g
%s/btn[^ \t]*\zsK/B/g

Given command history, that's much less typing, and is also very unlikely to require debugging, whereas that's always a potentiality when specifying any computation.