How to extract text matching a regex using Vim?

Question

I would like to extract some data from a piece of text with Vim. The input looks like so:

72" title="(168,72)" onmouseover="posizione('(168,72)');" onmouseout="posizione('(-,-)');">>
72" title="(180,72)" onmouseover="posizione('(180,72)');" onmouseout="posizione('(-,-)');">>
72" title="(192,72)" onmouseover="posizione('(192,72)');" onmouseout="posizione('(-,-)');">>
72" title="(204,72)" onmouseover="posizione('(204,72)');" onmouseout="posizione('(-,-)');">>

The data I need to extract is contained in the title="(168,72)" portions of the input. In particular, I am interested in extracting coordinate pairs in parentheses.

I thought about using Vim to first delete everything before title=", but I am not really a regex guru, so I am asking you. If anyone has any hint, please let me know! :)

Brimstone

Like other posted vim use of stream expression is very powerful. These stream manipulator are also available whit sed (almost the same thing whitout the :%). If you want to learn more about these expressions have a look at this sed introduction. – Acclivity

Answer 1

This will replace each line with a tab-delimited list of coordinates per line:

:%s/.* title="(\(\d\+\),\(\d\+\))".*/\1\t\2

Hesperus

Answer 2

This task can be achieved with a much simpler solution and with few keystrokes using normal command:

:%normal df(f)D

This means:

1. % - Run normal command on all file lines;
2. normal - run the following commands in normal mode;
3. df( - delete everything until you find a parenthesis (parenthesis included);
4. f) - move the cursor to );
5. D - delete everything until the end of the line.

You can also set a range, for example, run this from line 5 to 10:

:5,10normal df(f)D

Zinnes

Interesting way to do this without macros – Bandoleer

normal command is a very powerful tool. It's almost a "one time macro". – Zinnes

Answer 3

If you want an ad hoc solution for this one-off case, it might be quicker simply to select a visual block using CTRL-v. This will let you select an arbitrary column of text (in your case, the column containing title="(X,Y)"), which can then be copied as usual using y.

Arthur

Yeah a quick no-brain series I find my self using is: ^vGx....... judging the number of repeats (.) visually - pragmatic but works fine 80% of the cases – Unblinking

Answer 4

you can match everything inside title=() and discard everything else like this:

:%s,.*title="(\(.*\))".*,\1,

Kan