Mass conversion of items

Mass conversion of items

[Sharon Kimble]

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Hash: SHA512

I'm hoping that someone can help with this problem I have.

I have several org-mode files which have some specific formatting in
individual items, specifically -

- --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
\uuline{foo}
- --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

This gives a double-underling of 'foo' when exported to latex and built
into a pdf file.

I'm now in the situation when the double underlining also needs to be
italicised, and in org-mode its showing as -

- --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
/\uuline{foo}/
- --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
  
This gives a double-underling and italicised of 'foo' when exported to
latex and built into a pdf file.

I would like to change about 150+ 'foos' and possibly using
'replace-string' to do it. Also, 'foo' is lots of different words which
includes spaces between some of them. So how can I do it please?

Thanks  
  Sharon.
- -- 
Debian 10.5, fluxbox 1.3.7, emacs 27.1, org 9.3.7
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Re: Mass conversion of items

[tomas]

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On Tue, Sep 01, 2020 at 04:09:27PM +0100, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA512
> 
> I'm hoping that someone can help with this problem I have.
> 
> I have several org-mode files which have some specific formatting in
> individual items, specifically -
> 
> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> \uuline{foo}
> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> This gives a double-underling of 'foo' when exported to latex and built
> into a pdf file.
> 
> I'm now in the situation when the double underlining also needs to be
> italicised, and in org-mode its showing as -
> 
> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> /\uuline{foo}/
> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>   
> This gives a double-underling and italicised of 'foo' when exported to
> latex and built into a pdf file.
> 
> I would like to change about 150+ 'foos' and possibly using
> 'replace-string' to do it. Also, 'foo' is lots of different words which
> includes spaces between some of them. So how can I do it please?

Hm. From your description it's unclear what exactly are you
after. A couple of questions to try to zoom into that:

 - You want to change the text in the curly braces, i.e. what
   you call 'foo' above? Is this text always different? Is it
   possible to state a rule describing how this text looks like
   and by what you want to replace it? Or is the process going
   to be manual?
 - All that stuff: is it in one file or scattered across multiple
   files?

I'm sure there are a couple of other questions I just forget now,
But we'll get there :)

Cheers
 - t

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Re: Mass conversion of items

[Eric S Fraga]

On Tuesday,  1 Sep 2020 at 16:09, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> I would like to change about 150+ 'foos' and possibly using
> 'replace-string' to do it. Also, 'foo' is lots of different words which
> includes spaces between some of them. So how can I do it please?

You may wish to use replacement with regular expressions: Check info
manual for emacs, (emacs) Regexp Replace

-- 
: Eric S Fraga via Emacs 28.0.50, Org release_9.3.7-725-g7bc18e

Re: Mass conversion of items

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2020-09-01, at 18:19, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Tuesday,  1 Sep 2020 at 16:09, Sharon Kimble wrote:
>> I would like to change about 150+ 'foos' and possibly using
>> 'replace-string' to do it. Also, 'foo' is lots of different words which
>> includes spaces between some of them. So how can I do it please?
>
> You may wish to use replacement with regular expressions: Check info
> manual for emacs, (emacs) Regexp Replace

Maybe you could also use keyboard macros for that.

Hth,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: Mass conversion of items

[Sharon Kimble]

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Hash: SHA512

Thanks for replying Tomas.
  <tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 01, 2020 at 04:09:27PM +0100, Sharon Kimble wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA512
>> 
>> I'm hoping that someone can help with this problem I have.
>> 
>> I have several org-mode files which have some specific formatting in
>> individual items, specifically -
>> 
>> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> \uuline{foo}
>> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>> 
>> This gives a double-underling of 'foo' when exported to latex and built
>> into a pdf file.
>> 
>> I'm now in the situation when the double underlining also needs to be
>> italicised, and in org-mode its showing as -
>> 
>> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> /\uuline{foo}/
>> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>   
>> This gives a double-underling and italicised of 'foo' when exported to
>> latex and built into a pdf file.
>> 
>> I would like to change about 150+ 'foos' and possibly using
>> 'replace-string' to do it. Also, 'foo' is lots of different words which
>> includes spaces between some of them. So how can I do it please?
>
> Hm. From your description it's unclear what exactly are you
> after. A couple of questions to try to zoom into that:
>
>  - You want to change the text in the curly braces, i.e. what
>    you call 'foo' above? Is this text always different? Is it
>    possible to state a rule describing how this text looks like
>    and by what you want to replace it? Or is the process going
>    to be manual?
>  - All that stuff: is it in one file or scattered across multiple
>    files?

Okay, being very specific, all of '\uuline{foo}' remains, but with a
forward slash at the beginning and end of '\uuline{foo}' to achieve this
'/\uuline{foo}/'

Thanks
  Sharon.    
>
> I'm sure there are a couple of other questions I just forget now,
> But we'll get there :)
>
> Cheers
>  - t
>
- -- 
Debian 10.5, fluxbox 1.3.7, emacs 27.1, org 9.3.7
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Re: Mass conversion of items

[tomas]

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On Tue, Sep 01, 2020 at 06:22:02PM +0100, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA512
> 
> Thanks for replying Tomas.
>   <tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:

You're welcome :-)

[...]

> >> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> >> \uuline{foo}
> >> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

[...]

> >> - --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> >> /\uuline{foo}/
> >> - --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

[...]

> Okay, being very specific, all of '\uuline{foo}' remains, but with a
> forward slash at the beginning and end of '\uuline{foo}' to achieve this
> '/\uuline{foo}/'

Ah, got it now. Regular expressions seem to be your friends here.

I'm assuming your foo is a placeholder, and varies from instance
to instance. I'm further assuming the "foo"s don't contain a closing
curly brace (we'd have to refine things otherwise).

Try M-x (i.e. Meta-x) and then "query-replace-regexp". It asks you
first for the regular expression, which will be

  \\uuline{[^}]*}

(note the double backslash: that's because a backslash has a special
meaning in regular expressions, and you have to "escape" it with another
backslash; this regexp roughly states: "a backslash followed by uuline,
followed by an opening curly, followed by zero or more (that's the star)
characters which aren't a closing curly followed by a closing curly).

You finish that part with ENTER. Then you're asked for the replacement.
You enter

  /\&/

Which means: "a slash, followed by whatever you just matched (that's
the "\&" part, only one backslash this time) and a slash.

Make a backup of your file first :-)

Regular expressions are very powerful, but sometimes confusing. It pays
off big time to wrangle them!
 
Good luck
 - t

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