Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!motcsd!xdos!doug
From: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: vi versus emacs regexps? (was Re: Minix, Unix)
Summary: Oops! I was wrong.
Message-ID: <441@xdos.UUCP>
Date: 10 Aug 89 19:26:08 GMT
References: <3352@sol.warwick.ac.uk> <4031@cps3xx.UUCP> <7559@cbmvax.UUCP> <5067@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <439@xdos.UUCP> 
Reply-To: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Organization: Hunter Systems, Mountain View CA (Silicon Valley)
Lines: 29

I had said that vi's global search-and-replace surpasses emacs. Deven
was surprised:

In article  shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) writes:
>*That* I find hard to believe.  GNU Emacs has not only query-replace
>(a very nice function) but also query-replace-regexp.

Correction, I was wrong. I hadn't used any version of emacs very much
since about 1981 or so; I speaking on the basis of conversations with emacs
fans. Turns out I was misinformed. GNU emacs adopted all of vi's regular
expression features, plus egrep alternation, long ago (and yes, vi was
the influence). I found this out when I actually checked the GNU Emacs Manual
this morning.

I disagree with the default bindings (no default binding backward search),
but what else is new...easy enough to customize.

> [A regexp I-search would be pretty incredible...]

The manual says it's supported: "isearch-forward-regexp".

So given that, only my conditioned reflexes stand in the way of my
switching, and I've been trying to talk myself into taking the hit
for about a year now. Someday soon...Hmmm. I wonder if any of the
Amiga Emacs' support as full a regexp set as full Gnu Emacs?
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary