Replacement Strings

• The characters "?#{}+\" are special. To use them literally, precede them with the escapement character "\'.

• Replacement strings may just be a literal string or they may include the "ditto" character "?'. The ditto character will copy the character in the position specified in the replace-string from the same position in the located expression.

• A decimal digit placed within curly-braces (eg: {5}) will place that character of the located expression to the output.

• A "\" followed by a number will place that subexpression to the output. Subexpressions are numbered starting at 1.

• A plus-character "+" will place an incrementing decimal number to the output. One purpose of this operator is to number lines.

• A "#" followed by a number will cause the numbered subexpression to be printed in hexadecimal form.

• Any character in the replace-string may be represented by the hexadecimal value of that character using the following syntax: \xhh where hh is the hexadecimal value.

EXAMPLE

<$data = "Roses are red" "Violets are blue">
<$expr = "blue" "red">
<$replace = "you" "dead">
<sandr $expr $replace $data>
<LOOP $ret>
  $ret
</LOOP>

The output would be:

Roses are dead
Violets are you

CAVEATS
The sandr function was added Aug. 23 1996.

The replacements occur in the order of values in $expr, so a later $expr might match a previous $replace value.

SEE ALSO
rex, split