Re: bulk replacement on region, buffer, file?

[Emanuel Berg]

Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com> writes:

> I would appreciate pointers to code that enables
> "bulk replacement" of numerous string tuples
> ({to-replace, replace-with}) in a single call.
> What I mean, why I ask:
>
> I frequently scrape blocks of text from PDFs into
> Emacs text buffers. After I do so, I usually want to
> replace lots of strings in the buffer. E.g. (using
> '|' to delimit the strings),
>
> |CO 2| -> |CO2|
> |- | -> ||
> |“| -> |"|
> |”| -> |"|
> |[weird unicodes used for bulleting]| -> |*|

I hear you - everything is fair in the struggle against
those goofy chars! Down with unicode!

(Except: putting them as a quote when they aren't!)

Aaanyway...

Probably best way is to use set functions - another
good way tho is recursion. And I'm not just saying
that...

(defun replace-strings (tuple-list)
  (when tuple-list
      (let*((tuple          (car  tuple-list))
            (rest           (cdr  tuple-list))
            (replace-match  (car  tuple))
            (replace-string (cadr tuple)) )
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (while (re-search-forward replace-match (point-max) t) ; NOERROR
          (replace-match replace-string) )
        (replace-strings rest) )))

;; Eval this to fix the below typos:

(replace-strings '(("Robb Hall"     "Rob Hall")
                   ("Scott Ficsher" "Scott Fischer") ))

;; Robb Hall
;;
;; Scott Ficsher
;;
;; Robb Hall
;;
;; Scott Ficsher

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