Re: Applying macro to lines which match regexp

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Corey Foote <coreyfoote@hotmail.com> writes:

> I was reading through the Emacs manual today, and came across C-x C-k r
> (apply-macro-to-region-lines) which applies the last keyboard macro to each
> line that begins in the region. How would I apply the last keyboard macro to
> each line that begins in the region which match a certain regular expression.
> For example, say I was editing a Perl script and wanted to apply the last
> macro to all line which consist solely of a comment. For example:
>
> 1    # Print some text
> 2    print "foo";
> 3    print "foobar";
> 4
> 5    # And then a while later
> 6    print "foobarbaz";
>
> I would want to apply the macro to lines 1 and 6 which match the regular
> expression ^\s-*#. Thanks a bunch!
>
> Corey Foote
> Toby Software
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I'm not sure there is a command to do that 'out of the box'. Normally,
I'd probably write a function to do it. A couple of ideas though -

1. You could include in your macro definition an isearch command to find
the line you are interested in. 

2. See if you can find the package map-lines.el by Andreas Fuchs (part
of the emacs-goodies package in Debian). This allows you to apply a
command to a set of lines matching a regexp. 

3. Write something in elisp using the various map* funcitons.

HTH

Tim



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au