I'm trying to write a regex that matches all spaces except those enclosed in quotes. I found solutions on the Internet for various programming languages, for example, here, but I am having trouble converting this to Vim regex:
\s(?=(?:[^'"`]*(['"`])[^'"`]*\1)*[^'"`]*$)
The positive look-ahead (?= is \@= in Vim regex, non-capturing groups are \%(\) and capturing-groups are \(\). That would make your pattern:
\s\%(\%([^'"`]*\(['"`]\)[^'"`]*\1\)*[^'"`]*$\)\@=
There is a nice summary for comparing Perl compatible patterns with Vims in the help :h perl-patterns:
| Capability | in Vimspeak | in Perlspeak |
|---|---|---|
| force case insensitivity | \c |
(?i) |
| force case sensitivity | \C |
(?-i) |
| backref-less grouping | \%(atom\) |
(?:atom) |
| conservative quantifiers | \{-n,m} |
*?, +?, ??, {}? |
| 0-width match | atom\@= |
(?=atom) |
| 0-width non-match | atom\@! |
(?!atom) |
| 0-width preceding match | atom\@<= |
(?<=atom) |
| 0-width preceding non-match | atom\@<! |
(?<!atom) |
| match without retry | atom\@> |
(?>atom) |
That helps translating patterns.
:h perl-patterns:! I have a related question. If I put this into the following function: echo split('text "text"', "\\s\\%(\\%([^'\"`]*\\(['\"`]\\)[^'\"`]*\\1\\)*[^'\"`]*$\\)\\@="), I will have the following results: ['text', '"text"'] (double quotes captured). But if I use this expression in search (/), then the quotes are not captured. Can I avoid quotes capturing?