Convert word to another substituting case (upper or lower) with same case

Question

I am looking for a way to convert one word to another while "capturing" the case of the match that is substituted. An example:

I have the text:

Begin the beginning

Now I want to convert this to

End the ending

To do so I need a command like the one below:

s/([Bb]egin/ [CASE OF CAPTURE][Ee]nd/g

But then with a correctly working [CASE OF CAPTURE][Ee] part.

How do we get the case of the capture (being upper or lowercase begin) and substitute with same (upper or lowercase end)?

@SakariCajanus Thank you. I see that without a plugin it is quite cumbersome. Guess I have to find out how to use plugins in ViEmu. — user2609980, Jan 10, 2016 at 11:47
I understand it's just an example, but sometimes you might just want to do 2 substitutions instead of one. — PhilippFrank, Jan 11, 2016 at 7:22

Christian Brabandt · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-10 12:50:25Z

5

You can do it like this:

:s/\([Bb]\)egin/\=printf("%snd", submatch(1)==#'B'?'E':'e')/

This checks in the replacement part of the :s command, what the case of the first subgroup was and either returns an upper 'e' or a lower 'e'.

answered Jan 10, 2016 at 12:50

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And a /g at the end ;). Note that "Begin of the beginning" turns into "End of the endning", but that was my mistake. Thank you. :)
– user2609980
Jan 10, 2016 at 19:54

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