I have a substitute command that captures and displays submatch() values in the replacement string. But I have another line of information that I want to parse below this line. That line is always the first line after an empty line, though the number of lines TO that empty line varies. For example:
The first important line I want to capture is here
Stuff I don't want.
A few more lines of stuff I don't want...
Second line I want to capture.
This pattern repeats a hundred or so times in a document. I can substitute "The First Important Line" fine, but shouldn't that search pattern include a way to jump down to the first empty line and then pick up the next "Second line I want to capture." ?? I could then place the contents of that second line into submatch parenthesis and substitute them where needed (right?).
If so, I cannot discover the way to extend the first search pattern to capture the "Second line" Suggestions or correcting my approach would be greatly appreciated.
Someone has already dealt with a similar problem. Below I provide their solution and the detailed description.
/^\nF\d\_.\{-}\_^\n\zs.*/+
It means "Find a block of lines that start with F and a digit, then scan forward to the next blank line and select the line after that."
| Part of regex | Meaning |
|---|---|
^\n |
Matches the start of a line, followed by a newline - i.e a blank line |
F\d |
The next line starts with an F followed by a digit |
\_.\{-} |
\_. is like ., but also matches newline. \{-} matches the minimum number of the preceeding \_.. (If I were to use * instead of \{-}, it would match to near the end-of file.) |
\_^\n |
Matches a blank line. \_^ is like ^, but ^ only works at the start of a regular expression. |
\zs |
When the match is finished, set the start of match to this point. I use this because I don't want the preceding text to be highlighted. |
.* |
Matches the whole line. |
The + after the regular expression tells Vim to put the cursor on the line after the selection.