VIM Advanced text string search HELP

[Matt Truslove]

Good morning,
I have a very important XML file which contains a lot of important metadata. Recently my old computer has become useless so i managed to backup all my data and export all my files.

as part of the backup i exported the metadata via an XML feature. But not realising that the new location would be different for all the files once moved.

the XML file has a tag for Location and i need this to change whilst retaining the file name.

i was told VIM is perfect for this. so fired fired up my old linux box to give it a go but no avail.

please see the below example

<key>Location</key><string>file:///Volumes/OLDDRIVE/OTHERFOLDER/aaaaa/bbbbb/ccccc/ddddd/eeeee/20Berksonax.uue</string>

i want to find and replace the text between the "file:///" and the last but one "/" (as the last slash will affect the XML </string>.) but retain the file name, extension and end tag </string>

to end up with


<key>Location</key><string>file:///NewVolume/NEW_SSD/NEWFOLDER2018/0Berksonax.uue</string>

[Keith Edmunds]

If it were me, I'd put symlinks on the system to match the old path so
that the file doesn't need editing.

I'd also review my backup AND TEST RESTORE process.

--
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with
the average voter" - Winston Churchill

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Matt,

On Fri, 25 May 2018 01:16:54 -0700 (PDT)
Matt Truslove <m81t...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Good morning,
> I have a very important XML file which contains a lot of important metadata.
> Recently my old computer has become useless so i managed to backup all my
> data and export all my files.
>
> as part of the backup i exported the metadata via an XML feature. But not
> realising that the new location would be different for all the files once
> moved.
>

see http://perl-begin.org/uses/text-parsing/ and
http://perl-begin.org/uses/xml/ and equivalents for other languages. See
https://blog.codinghorror.com/parsing-html-the-cthulhu-way/ .

> the XML file has a tag for Location and i need this to change whilst
> retaining the file name.
>
> i was told VIM is perfect for this. so fired fired up my old linux box to
> give it a go but no avail.
>
> please see the below example
>
> <key>Location</key><string>file:///Volumes/OLDDRIVE/OTHERFOLDER/aaaaa/bbbbb/ccccc/ddddd/eeeee/20Berksonax.uue</string>
>
> i want to find and replace the text between the "file:///" and the last but
> one "/" (as the last slash will affect the XML </string>.) but retain the
> file name, extension and end tag </string>
>
> to end up with
>
>
> <key>Location</key><string>file:///NewVolume/NEW_SSD/NEWFOLDER2018/0Berksonax.uue</string>
>

--
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[Matt Truslove]

Thank you for the resources, but all i have at the moment is a linux terminal and my work machine, so resources and software is limited

[John Little]

It may help if you can start vim in non-compatible mode, such as with

vi -N

I suggest also turning on search highlighting:

:set hlsearch

If the path you want to replace does not have any dots, I would first search for the text that needs to be replaced, perhaps

/\/\/\/[^.]\+\/

With search highlighting, you can see what's been matched. When you're happy with it,

:%s##///new/path/to/file/

(Note the # above is an arbitrary choice, usually one uses / but that's messy here.)

[Tom M]

Hello,

how about this substitution?

%s#\(<key>Location</key><string>file://\)/\(Volumes\)/\(OLDDRIVE\)/\(OTHERFOLDER\)/.*/\(.*\)\(</string>\)#\1/NewVolume/NEW_SSD/NEWFOLDER2018/\5\6#

First try on one line (without the '%') to see if the result is precisely what you need.

Tom

[Matt Truslove]

Great, i will run some tests now. thanks for your help, i will report back

[Matt Truslove]

Thank you for all your help, TOM M had the solution