A use case for \%#

Some time ago, per chance, quite obscure feature of VIM's regular expressions: \%# - :h /\%# says "Matches with the cursor position."

At first I couldn't see any use for it.

But then, while editing per hand some XMLs, I stumbled upon a problem: how to insert a tag break (close and open), while adding the indentation? Normal VIM macrii(*) can insert - but one looses the cursor position as soon as movement commands are used. But to make a copy of the indentation, one needs to move the cursor to the beginning of the line.

Edit0. OK. It just dawned on me. One could first insert the XML tag break + new line. Then copy indentation. Uh. Need to sleep more and more often. But I already wrote the post so what the heck I'll just post it.

Then I recalled that the regular expressions could match current cursor position. And I had a hunch that the \%# could be used for the purpose. The Enlightenment come only few days later and took shape of that for the <p> tag:

:s!^\(\s*\)\(.\{}\)\s\+\(\k*\%#\k*\)!\1\2</p>\r\1<p>\3!

First () submatch are the spaces (= indentation) of the current line.

Second () submatch is everything up to the word under cursor (matched non-greedily as I had some fancy problems with greedy match here).

Third () submatch is the actual word under cursor, anchored by the \%# to the current cursor position. (The redundant spaces before the word are trimmed between the second and third submatches.)

That all is replaced by. Original line: \1\2 is the line up to the word under cursor, closing </p> tag and \r for new line. New line: \1 which is the wanted indentation, opening <p> tag and finally the word (obviously followed by the rest of the original line).

P.S. \S (anything but space) in place of \k works pretty well too.

P.P.S. VIM should support some sort of nesting of regular expressions. During editing lots of pieces could be reused - but only reuse regular expressions do support is the copy-paste. The Clue.


(*) Because for the particular task at hand, macros have infested irreversibly my vimrc. Just like virii. Any press of a wrong button, and only the undo can sort out what the hell has just happened.