Making Changes in Multiple Files and Using Vim in Shell Scripts

============================================================================== *26.3* Making a change in many files Suppose you have a variable called "x_cnt" and you want to change it to "x_counter". This variable is used in several of your C files. You need to change it in all files. This is how you do it. Put all the relevant files in the argument list: > :args *.c < This finds all C files and edits the first one. Now you can perform a substitution command on all these files: > :argdo %s/\<x_cnt\>/x_counter/ge | update The ":argdo" command takes an argument that is another command. That command will be executed on all files in the argument list. The "%s" substitute command that follows works on all lines. It finds the word "x_cnt" with "\<x_cnt\>". The "\<" and "\>" are used to match the whole word only, and not "px_cnt" or "x_cnt2". The flags for the substitute command include "g" to replace all occurrences of "x_cnt" in the same line. The "e" flag is used to avoid an error message when "x_cnt" does not appear in the file. Otherwise ":argdo" would abort on the first file where "x_cnt" was not found. The "|" separates two commands. The following "update" command writes the file only if it was changed. If no "x_cnt" was changed to "x_counter" nothing happens. There is also the ":windo" command, which executes its argument in all windows. And ":bufdo" executes its argument on all buffers. Be careful with this, because you might have more files in the buffer list than you think. Check this with the ":buffers" command (or ":ls"). ============================================================================== *26.4* Using Vim from a shell script Suppose you have a lot of files in which you need to change the string "-person-" to "Jones" and then print it. How do you do that? One way is to do a lot of typing. The other is to write a shell script to do the work. The Vim editor does a superb job as a screen-oriented editor when using Normal mode commands. For batch processing, however, Normal mode commands do not result in clear, commented command files; so here you will use Ex mode instead. This mode gives you a nice command-line interface that makes it easy to put into a batch file. ("Ex command" is just another name for a command-line (:) command.) The Ex mode commands you need are as follows: > %s/-person-/Jones/g write tempfile quit You put these commands in the file "change.vim". Now to run the editor in batch mode,

This section details using the ":argdo" command to make changes across multiple files, including how to specify files, perform substitutions, handle errors, and update files conditionally. It also covers using Vim in shell scripts via Ex mode commands for batch processing, with an example of substituting a string and then printing the file.