Re: Advanced query-replace-regexp in code

[bojohan+news@dd.chalmers.se (Johan Bockgård)]

Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> In that case, why allow programs to call replace-regexp in the first
> place? If they can call it, why shouldn't they be able to use all the
> features?

They shouldn't call it:

    This function is usually the wrong thing to use in a Lisp program.
    What you probably want is a loop like this:
      (while (re-search-forward REGEXP nil t)
        (replace-match TO-STRING nil nil))
    which will run faster and will not set the mark or print anything.