Swap text around equal sign
vi, vim
Solution
Something like this:
:%s/\([^=]*\)\s\+=\s\+\([^;]*\)/\2 = \1
You might have to fiddle with it a bit if you have more complex code than what you have shown in the example.
EDIT: Explanation
We use the `s/`find`/`replace comand. The find part gets us this:
- longest possible string consisting of anything-but-equal-signs, expressed by `[^=]*` ...
- ... followed by one or more spaces, `\s\+` (the extra `\` in front of `+` is a vim oddity)
- ... followed by `=` and again any number of spaces, `=\s\+`
- ... followed by the longest possible string of non-semicolon characters, `[^;]*`
Then we throw in a couple of capturing parentheses to save the stuff we'll need to construct the replacement string, that's the `\(`stuff`\)` syntax
And finally, we use the captured strings in the replace part of the `s/`find`/`replace command: that's `\1` and `\2`.
Problem
Is there an easy way to flip code around an equal sign in vi/vim? Eg: I want to turn this: ``` value._1 = return_val.delta_clear_flags; value._2._1 = return_val.delta_inactive_time_ts.tv_sec; value._2._2 = return_val.delta_inactive_time_ts.tv_nsec; value._3 = return_val.delta_inactive_distance_km; (...) ``` into this: ``` return_val.delta_clear_flags = value._1; return_val.delta_inactive_time_ts.tv_sec = value._2._1; return_val.delta_inactive_time_ts.tv_nsec = value._2._2; return_val.delta_inactive_distance_km = value._3; (...) ``` on A LOT of lines in a file. I know this seems a little trivial, but I've been running into lots of cases when coding where I've needed to do this in the past, and I've never had a good idea/way to do it that didn't require a lot of typing in vim, or writing a awk script. I would think this would be possible via a one liner in vi. Explanations of the one-liners is very welcome and will be looked upon highly when I select my accepted answer. :)