regex find and replace all with capture groups throws E488: Trailing characters

Question

My text file looks like this

Lastname, Firstname
Doe, John

I'm trying to get it to end like this using find replace regex

Firstname Lastname
John Doe

This regex throws the error, although using find/replace in atom editor with same pattern works fine. What am I doing wrong?

:s/(\w+),\s(\w+)/$1 $2/:g

lacostenycoder · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-13 22:19:57Z

1

Try it like this:

:%s/\(\w\+\),\s\(\w\+\)/\2 \1/g

Or for simpler syntax without all the escapes use \v for very-magic ( thanks to @D.BenKnoble )

:%s/\v(\w+),\s(\w+)/\2 \1/g

lacostenycoder

1235 bronze badges

answered Jan 12, 2019 at 15:40

Eric Mintz

1326 bronze badges

Could you change \1 \2 to \2 \1? The TO wanted to switch Lastname and Firstname.
– Ralf
Jan 12, 2019 at 16:17
why do I need to escape the \+ in vim? Is there another way to do this?
– lacostenycoder
Jan 12, 2019 at 16:29
The escape prevents the + from being interpreted as a literal character. I don't know of any other way to do it.
– Eric Mintz
Jan 12, 2019 at 16:39
2

@lacostenycoder with the very-magic switch, less needs escaping. I suggest you read help pattern
– D. Ben Knoble ♦
Jan 12, 2019 at 17:08
2

@lacostenycoder %s/\v(\w+),\s(\w+)/\2 \1/g (i think)
– D. Ben Knoble ♦
Jan 12, 2019 at 19:57

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