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I need a little help with some vimscript-ing.

I have a huge log file with multiple blocks of text resembling the following:

[log file start]
...
...
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net a
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net b
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net c
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net d
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net e
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net f
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net g
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net h
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net i
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net j
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net k
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net l
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net m
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net n
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net o
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net p
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net q
Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule on net r
...
...
….  <10,000 more lines like above>
….
Information: Updating global clock route.
[log file end]

I would like to write a function bound to ;b that allows me to skip the entire block of similar text. For example, place the cursor at the 1st line of text, hit ;b and have the cursor move to the 1st line immediately after the block of similar text.

I realize I can navigate to the end of the file and search backwards for Information: Setting NDR rule but there may be multiple block occurrences of the text and a backwards search would bring me to the end of the last block.

This is what I have so far:

function! SkipBlockDn()
  let ref = getline(v:lnum)
  execute "normal! j"
  let line = getline(v:lnum)
  "
  "Help needed here to split up the line into words
  "Do a word by word comparison between ref and line
  "If current line and ref match like 80% or so, consider the match close enough and move to next line
  "
  while (line ==# ref)
    execute "normal! j"
    let line = getline(v:lnum)
  endwhile

endfunction
nmap <silent>  ;b  :call SkipBlockDn()<CR>
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  • 1
    Welcome to Vi and Vim! I've made a few edits to your post. (PS you can write normal! j without execute. You can also use getline('.'). Then there is :help split() or :help =~#.)
    – D. Ben Knoble
    May 12, 2021 at 20:57

1 Answer 1

1

Let me start by offering a solution that you can implement in an ad-hoc fashion, without the need to write Vimscript or pre-define any mappings.

You can use the \@! zero-width negative look-ahead item as part of a pattern to only match lines that do not start with a specific sequence of characters.

In your case, you could use a simple search such as the one below:

/^\(Information: Setting NDR rule shield_rule\)\@!

You can also use the Ctrl+R command from the search input to help you enter the first few words of the current line. (See :help c_CTRL-R.)

For example, you can yank the 6 first words (separated by whitespace) of the current line with 0y6W and then use /^\( followed by Ctrl+R, " to read from the unnamed register, then \)\@! to finish entering the search pattern.

Alternatively, after entering the preamble of /^\(, you can use Ctrl+R, Ctrl+L to insert the line under the cursor, then use Backspace or Ctrl+W to trim the last part of the line you don't want in the match, and finally close the pattern with \)\@! and execute the search.

Of course, you can automate that into a Vimscript function and add a mapping for it. If I were to do so, I'd build a pattern such as the one I described, then use call search() to execute the search with this pattern. The tricky part in writing a function and creating a mapping is probably covering the corner cases (empty lines, lines that are too short, search metacharacters, customize percentage of the line to use, etc.) When using an ad-hoc procedure, it's usually easy to spot those issues and adapt the search to cope with them.

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