Search and Replace with incremented values in Vim

Question

Lets say I wrote a simple CSS rule like this:

.star_10 {
  background: url(stars.png) no-repeat 0 0;
}

And I need 10, so I copied it 9 times.

Answer 1

You can use the s/pattern/replace construct with the \= symbol in order to evaluate a function or expression, as shown:

Decrementing the .star_10:

let g:decr = 11

fu! Decr() 
  let g:decr = g:decr - 1
  return g:decr
endfu

:%s/.star_10/\=".star_" . Decr()/

Similarly, you'd do

let g:decr_18 = 18
fu! Decr18() 
  let g:decr_18 = g:decr_18 - 18
  return g:decr_18
endfu

and then replace the 0 0; with a

:%s/no-repeat 0 0;/\="no-repeat 0 " . Decr18() . "px"/

For both functions, a (global) variable is declared that is manipulated within the functions and returned. The functin itself is called for every line matching the pattern. the pattern is substituted with the expression following the \=.