Add prefix to numbers at beginning of each line

Question

Should be straight-foward but cannot get it working. I have a text file that has numbers at the beginning of some lines. For e.g:

1. Some text....
running to many lines
2. Some more text ...
3. A long line...
that spans...
many more..
lines

I'd like to add a prefix 3. to each of the numbers.

%s,^\d\+,3\.\1,g

doesn't work.

Rich · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-25T10:40:15.143

5

Firstly, you don't need to escape the dot in the replacement section (because in that part of the command it doesn't have another possible meaning).

However, that's not the cause of your problem, which is instead that you're using \1 (the first captured group), but your expression doesn't contain any groups.

You can fix this either by adding one:

:%s,^\(\d\),3.\1

Or more simply by using \0 (the entire match) instead:

:%s,^\d,3.\0

Note also that the g flag is unnecessary and so is the \+ repeat. Your expression can only match at the start of the line, so there can only ever be a single match to replace. And ^\d will match the correct position in e.g. "30." just as well as ^\d\+

edited Jul 25 '18 at 10:40

answered Jul 25 '18 at 10:24

Rich

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@linuxfan You're welcome. See the edit I just made for a slightly more concise version! – Rich Jul 25 '18 at 10:38
1

:%s,^\d,3.\0 even shorter: :%s,^\d,3.&
– Christian Brabandt Jul 26 '18 at 12:15

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 26 '18 at 11:11

3

You can do this with

:%s/^\ze\d/3.

From :h /\ze

\ze Matches at any position, and sets the end of the match there: The
    previous char is the last char of the whole match. |/zero-width|
    Can be used multiple times, the last one encountered in a matching
    branch is used.

edited Jul 26 '18 at 11:11

statox

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answered Jul 25 '18 at 10:11

Naumann

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Add prefix to numbers at beginning of each line

2 Answers2