Quickly creating JSON entries in an Avro schema

Question

Is there a quicker way to create more entries of form { "name": FIELD_NAME, "type": "string" } from a list of words down below, than recording a macro to process each word and then pasting the result in place?

{
  "namespace": "my-space",
  "type": "record",
  "name": "Transaction",
  "fields": [
    { "name": "transaction_id", "type": "string" }
  ]
}

# Fields
first_name
last_name
amount
currency
transaction_date

I was hoping for an alternative approach where I could use a template string and then use the list of words to create substituted entry for each, so:

{ "name": "PLACEHOLDER", "type": "string" } => { "name": "first_name", "type": "string" }
                                               { "name": "last_name", "type": "string" }
                                               ...

I'm happy to use the macros, but something along the lines of the above would be more intuitive for me (and hopefully for others, too).

Answer 1

Have you considered using :substitute? First, start with this:

{ "name": "\1", "type": "string" }
\(\w\+\)

first_name
last_name
amount
currency
transaction_date

Now, on line one, yank to register a: 1G^"a$. On line two, yank to register b: 2G^"b$. Then perform the substitute on the appropriate lines:

:4,8s/<c-r>b/<c-r>a/<cr>

Note: <cr> means the enter key and <c-r> means ctrl+r

Result:

{ "name": "first_name", "type": "string" }
{ "name": "last_name", "type": "string" }
{ "name": "amount", "type": "string" }
{ "name": "currency", "type": "string" }
{ "name": "transaction_date", "type": "string" }

You could have also used visual block mode, but this method more easily generalizes to multiple fields; you can use \1, \2 up to \9.