Re: Find first line FOLLOWING a sequence of matches

[tomas]

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On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 04:53:58PM +0000, Subhan Michael Tindall wrote:
> Table like this: (abbreviated)
> |a|b|c|
> |a|d|e|
> |a|z||
> |m|b|c|
> |m|c|d|
> |ab|c|d|

Here's a little Emacs Lisp snippet to get you started:

  (defun my-segmentize-table ()
    (interactive)
    (let ((curr-fc nil)) ;; current first col
      (while (looking-at "^|\\([^|]*\\)")
        (let ((fc (match-string 1)))
          (unless (equal fc curr-fc)
            ;; we are at the start of a line with a "new" first column
            (insert (format ",* %s\n" fc))
            (setq curr-fc fc)))
        ;; advance one line:
        (beginning-of-line 2))))

Season to taste :-)

If you don't know what to do with it, here are some instructions:

 - Paste into a spare buffer (the *scratch* buffer is fine for that)
 - Evaluate the whole thing by going to its end and keying C-x C-e
   (aka "eval-last-sexp"). Now your Emacs should know a new command
   "my-segmentize-table"
 - Go to the first line of the table you want to transform
 - Type there "M-x my-segmentize-table"

Make first a backup of your valuable buffers ;-)

Enjoy
- -- t
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