Remove square brackets surrounding expression

Question

In Python, I am trying to update my code from typed dict to dataclass. Language is just indicated as a reference, it is a pure Vim question.

I need to replace my_params["some_property"] with my_params.some_property

I have some difficulty replacing [".

How can I replace everything at once?

D. Ben Knoble · Answer 1 · 2021-08-19T10:45:21.010

3

Since replacing everything at once is likely to accidentally get some wrong things, I would make sure to add the confirm flag, or be a bit cleverer: we’ll use the surround plugin and a macro to step through the file and make the changes.

/\[": search for a pattern that should find all the things you need to change but may find extras. Press n until you’re on a match that needs changed.
qqds[ds"i.<esc>q: record a macro that deletes square brackets, quotes, and inserts a dot.
Press n/N to find places to edit and @q (the first time)/@@ (subsequent times) to make the change.

edited Aug 19 '21 at 10:45

answered Aug 17 '21 at 11:38

D. Ben Knoble

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Note that ds comes from this plugin: https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround - it's not "vanilla" Vim. (AFAIK anyway :) ) – Zoe is on strike Aug 19 '21 at 08:37
@Zoe you’re correct: I usually am too lazy to add links to well-known plugins from mobile and forget to add them in. Edits welcome in all such cases. – D. Ben Knoble Aug 19 '21 at 10:45
Oh, managed to miss the part where you said it was from a plugin. My bad! – Zoe is on strike Aug 19 '21 at 10:52
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@Zoe no worries :) thanks for making the link easy to add in! – D. Ben Knoble Aug 19 '21 at 10:53

Lionel Hamayon · Answer 2 · 2021-08-19T08:45:38.810

2

New version from @b-layer

:%s/\v\["([^"]+)"]/.\1/gc

%s targets the whole file
\v is the very magic modifier
\[" matches ["
([^"]"+) represents the capture group for some_property, which [^"] ends at the next double quotes. + makes it at least one character.
\1 references the capture group in the replacement section
\g enables to replace for more than one occurrence per line and c asks for confirmation

Previous version:

I could perform the replacement executing the following command:

:%s/\v(\[")(.*)("\])/.\2/gc

where:

\v is the very magic modifier,
(\[")and ("\]) the capture groups 1 and 3 for the brackets and double quotes
(.*) the capture group 2, which is then referenced with \2 in the replacement section.

edited Aug 19 '21 at 08:45

answered Aug 17 '21 at 09:24

Lionel Hamayon

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If you're not using them in the replacement you shouldn't need capture groups 1 and 3. Also, ] doesn't need to be escaped. Finally, .* is pretty greedy so it's usually safer to use a "not the next thing I want to match" pattern instead...in this case [^"]*. So :%s/\v\["([^"]*)"]/.\1/gc – B Layer Aug 17 '21 at 09:36
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(And it really should be a + rather than a * since my_params[""] isn't valid...but that's a small detail. :) – B Layer Aug 17 '21 at 09:44
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thanks for the very thorough review :) – Lionel Hamayon Aug 19 '21 at 07:24

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 23 '21 at 23:46

Given I sometime use single quotes and other times doubles quotes, here is another variation on B-Layer :substitute command that supports both, plus the reverse operation.

In order to remember the names, I've wrapped the two actions into commands.

command! -range=1
      \ ToAttribute <line1>,<line2>s/\v\[(["'])([^"']+)\1]/.\2/gc
command! -range=1 -nargs=? -complete=customlist,s:compl_to_dict
      \ ToDict      call s:to_dict(<f-args>)
" Internal support functions for :ToDict
function! s:to_dict(...) range abort
  let quote = get(a:, 1, "'")
  exe printf('%s,%ss/\v.(\k+)/[%s\1%s]/gc', a:firstline, a:lastline, quote, quote)
endfunction
function! s:compl_to_dict(...) abort
  return ['"', "'"]
endfunction

Remove square brackets surrounding expression

3 Answers3