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