How to find and replace a group while keeping the word

Question

How using vim serach and replace change

title: <Translation {...messages.title} />,
title: <Translation {...messages.header} />,
title: <Translation {...messages.message} />,

into

title: <Translation id="key.subkey.title" />,
title: <Translation id="key.subkey.header"  />,
title: <Translation id="key.subkey.message"  />,

I've thought about something like: %s/{...messages\.[a-zA-Z ]*\}/id="\1"/g But I don't know how to make [a-zA-Z ]*\ a reference to be used to paste in the new form.

Answer 1

But I don't know how to make [a-zA-Z]* a reference to be used to paste in the new form

Just put it inside \( and \), that way you can refer to it in the replacement as \1 (assuming that's the first group inside parentheses.)

%s/{\.\.\.messages\.\([a-zA-Z]*\)}/id="key.subkey.\1"/

See also :help s/\1.