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Re: VIM command to convert comma delimited text to latex table



* Abner Gershon (abner_gershon@yahoo.com) [020220 09:01]:
> Can someone tell me search and replace commands I can
> use to convert comma delimited text in form:
> "field 1","field 2","field 3"
> to text file to be used in tabular latex file of form:
> field 1 & field 2 & field 3

:%s/","/ \& /g
:%s/"//g

> I did this once before but it took me a few hours to
> figure out and I don't recall how I eventually did it.

Then I should probably help you understand it to make sure you don't
spend any more hours on similar problems. There are many different ways
you could tackle this problem. The way I give above does it in 2 steps:
change /","/ to / & /, and then remove the first and last quotation
marks (the ones that aren't part of a /","/ sequence).

Be careful with the second line if you have quotation marks embedded in
your fields, though, even if they're escaped with a backslash or
something. If that's the case, you might want to do something like this
first:

:%s/\\"/<EMBEDDEDQUOTE>/g

and this afterward:

:%s/<EMBEDDEDQUOTE>/"/g

There are probably more elegant ways, and I'm sure someone else on the
list will bring them, but these should work for you.

good times,
Vineet

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