<chapter id="advanced-editing-tools">
<chapterinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>&Anders.Lund; &Anders.Lund.mail;</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
</chapterinfo>
<title>Advanced Editing Tools</title>

<sect1 id="advanced-editing-tools-comment">

<title>Comment/Uncomment</title>

<para>The Comment and Uncomment commands, available from the
<guimenu>Tools</guimenu> menu allow you to add or remove comment
markers to the selection, or the current line if no text is selected,
if comments are supported by the format of the text you are
editing.</para>

<para>The rules for how commenting is done are defined in the syntax
definitions, so if syntax highlighting is not used,
commenting/uncommenting is not possible.</para>

<para>Some formats define single line comment markers, some multiline
markers and some both.  If multiline markers are not available,
commenting out a selection that does not fully include its last line
is not possible.</para>

<para>If a single line marker is available, commenting single lines is
preferred where applicable, as this helps to avoid problems with
nested comments.</para>

<para>When removing comment markers, no uncommented text should be
selected. When removing multiline comment markers from a selection,
any whitespace outside the comment markers is ignored.</para>

<para><indexterm><primary>comment</primary></indexterm>
To place comment markers, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Comment</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
menu item or the related keyboard shortcut sequence, default is
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>D</keycap></keycombo>.</para>

<para><indexterm><primary>uncomment</primary></indexterm>
To remove comment markers, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Uncomment</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
menu item or the related keyboard shortcut, default is <keycombo
action="simul">&Ctrl;&Shift;<keycap>D</keycap></keycombo>.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="advanced-editing-tools-commandline">
<title>The Editor Component Command Line</title>

<para>Kates editor component has an internal command line, allowing you to
perform various actions from a minimal GUI. The command line is a text entry
in the bottom of the editor area, to show it select
<menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu><guimenuitem>Switch to Command Line</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
or use the shortcut (default is
<keycombo action="simul"><keycap>F7</keycap></keycombo>). The editor provides
a set of commands as documented below, and additional commands can be provided
by plugins.</para>

<para>To execute a command, press the return key. The command line will indicate
wether it succeded and possibly display a message. If you entered the
command line by pressing <keycap>F7</keycap> it will automatically
hide after a few seconds. To clear the message and enter a new command,
press <keycap>F7</keycap> again.</para>

<para>The command line has a built-in help system, issue the command
<command>help</command> to get started. To see a list of all available commands
issue <command>help list</command>, to view help for a specific command, do
<command>help <replaceable>command</replaceable></command>.</para>

<para>The command line has a built in history, so you can reuse commands already
typed. To navigate the history, use the <keycap>Up</keycap> and
<keycap>Down</keycap> keys. When showing historical commands, the argument part
of the command will be selected, allowing you to easily overwrite the
arguments.</para>

<sect2 id="advanced-editing-tools-commandline-commands">
<title>Standard Command Line Commands</title>

<sect3 id="advanced-editing-tools-commandline-commands-configure">
<title>Commands for Configuring the Editor</title>

<para>These command are provided by the editor component, and allows you to
configure the active document and view only. This is handy if you want to use
a setting different from the default settings, for example for indentation.
</para>

<variablelist>
<title>Argument types</title>

<varlistentry>
<term>BOOLEAN</term>
<listitem><para>This is used with commands that turns things on or off.
Legal values are <userinput>on</userinput>, <userinput>off</userinput>,
<userinput>true</userinput>, <userinput>false</userinput>,
<userinput>1</userinput> or <userinput>0</userinput></para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>INTEGER</term>
<listitem><para>An integer number</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>STRING</term>
<listitem><para>A string</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-tab-width</command><arg>INTEGER width</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the tab width to the number <userinput>width</userinput></para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-indent-width</command><arg>INTEGER width</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the indentation width to the number
<userinput>width</userinput>. Used only if you are indenting with
spaces.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-word-wrap-column</command><arg>INTEGER width</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the line width for hard wrapping to
<userinput>width</userinput>. This is used if you are having your text wrapped
automatically.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-icon-border</command><arg>enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the visibility of the icon border.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-folding-markers</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the visibility of the folding markers pane.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-line-numbers</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the visibility of the line numbers pane.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-replace-tabs</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>If enabled, tabs are replaced with spaces as you type.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-remove-trailing-space</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>If enabled, trailing whitespace are removed whenever the cursor
leaves a line.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-show-tabs</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>If enabled, TAB characters and trailing whitespace will be
visualized by a small dot.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-indent-spaces</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>If enabled, the editor will indent with
<option>indent-width</option> spaces for each indentation level, rather than
with one TAB character.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-mixed-indent</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>If enabled, kate will use a mix of TAB and spaces for
indentation. Each indentation level will be <option>indent-width</option> wide,
and more indentation levels will be optimized to use as many TAB characters as
possible.</para>
<para>When executed, this command will additionally set space indentation enabled,
and if the indent width is unspecified it will be set to half of the
<option>tab-width</option> for the document at the time of execution.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-word-wrap</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Enables dynamic word wrap according to
<userinput>enable</userinput></para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-replace-tabs-save</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>When enabled, tabs will be replaced with whitespace whenever
 the document is saved.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-remove-trailing-space-save</command><arg>BOOLEAN enable</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>When enabled, trailing space will be removed from each line
whenever the document is saved.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-indent-mode</command><arg>name</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the autoindentation mode to <userinput>name</userinput>.
If <userinput>name</userinput> is not known, the mode is set to 'none'. Valid
modes are 'cstyle', 'csands', 'xml', 'python', 'varindent' and 'none'.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>set-highlight</command><arg>highlight</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the syntax highlighting system for the document. The
argument must be a valid highlight name, as seen in the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guisubmenu>Highlighting</guisubmenu></menuchoice>
menu. This command provides an autocompletion list for it's argument.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect3>

<sect3 id="advanced-editing-tools-commandline-commands-edit">
<title>Commands for editing</title>

<para>These commands modifies the current document.</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>indent</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Indents the selected lines or the current line.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>unindent</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Unindents the selected lines or current line.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>cleanindent</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Cleans up the indentation of the selected lines or current line
according to the indentation settings in the document.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>comment</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Inserts comment markers to make the selection or selected lines
or current line a comment according to the text format as defined by the syntax
highlight definition for the document.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>uncomment</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Removes comment markers from the selection or selected lines
or current line according to the text format as defined by the syntax highlight
definition for the document.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>kill-line</command></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Deletes the current line.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>replace</command><arg>pattern</arg><arg>replacement</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Replaces text matching <userinput>pattern</userinput> with
<userinput>replacement</userinput>. If you want to include whitespace in the
<userinput>pattern</userinput>, you must quote both the <userinput>pattern</userinput>
and <userinput>replacement</userinput> with single or double quotes. If the
arguments are unquoted, the first word is used as <userinput>pattern</userinput>
and the rest for <userinput>replacement</userinput>. If
<userinput>replacement</userinput> is empty, each occurrence of
<userinput>pattern</userinput> is removed.</para>
<para>You can set flags to configure the search by adding a colon, followed
by one or more letters each representing a configuration, giving the form
<userinput>replace:options pattern replacement</userinput>. Available options
are:

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>b</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search backwards.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>c</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search from cursor position.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>e</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search in the selection only.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>r</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do regular expression search. If set, you may use
<userinput>\N</userinput> where N is a number to represent captures in the
replacement string.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>s</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do case sensitive search.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>p</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Prompt for permission to replace the next occurence.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>w</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Match whole words only.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>date</command><arg>format</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>Inserts a date/time string as defined by the specified
<userinput>format</userinput>, or the format <quote>yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss</quote>
if none is specified. The following translations are done when interpreting
<userinput>format</userinput>:

<informaltable>
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row><entry><literal>d</literal></entry><entry>The day as number without a leading zero (1-31).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>dd</literal></entry><entry>The day as number with a leading zero (01-31).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>ddd</literal></entry><entry>The abbreviated localized day name (e.g. 'Mon'..'Sun').</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>dddd</literal></entry><entry>The long localized day name (e.g. 'Monday'..'Sunday').</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>M</literal></entry><entry>The month as number without a leading zero (1-12).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>MM</literal></entry><entry>The month as number with a leading zero (01-12).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>MMM</literal></entry><entry>The abbreviated localized month name (e.g. 'Jan'..'Dec').</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>yy</literal></entry><entry>the year as two digit number (00-99).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>yyyy</literal></entry><entry>The year as four digit number (1752-8000).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>h</literal></entry><entry>The hour without a leading zero (0..23 or 1..12 if AM/PM display).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>hh</literal></entry><entry>The hour with a leading zero (00..23 or 01..12 if AM/PM display).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>m</literal></entry><entry>The minute without a leading zero (0..59).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>mm</literal></entry><entry>The minute with a leading zero (00..59).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>s</literal></entry><entry>The second without a leading zero (0..59).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>ss</literal></entry><entry>The second with a leading zero (00..59).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>z</literal></entry><entry>The milliseconds without leading zeroes (0..999).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>zzz</literal></entry><entry>The milliseconds with leading zeroes (000..999).</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>AP</literal></entry><entry>Use AM/PM display. AP will be replaced by either "AM" or "PM".</entry></row>
<row><entry><literal>ap</literal></entry><entry>Use am/pm display. ap will be replaced by either "am" or "pm".</entry></row>

</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>

</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>char</command><arg>identifier</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem>
<para>This command allows you to insert literal characters by their
numerical identifier, in decimal, octal or hexadecimal form.
To use it launch the Editing Command dialog and type <userinput>char:
[number]</userinput> in the entry box, then hit
<guibutton>OK</guibutton>.</para>

<example>
<title><command>char</command> examples</title>

<para>Input: <userinput>char:234</userinput></para>
<para>Output: <computeroutput>&#234;</computeroutput></para>
<para>Input: <userinput>char:0x1234</userinput></para>
<para>Output: <computeroutput>&#x1234;</computeroutput></para>
</example>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>
<indexterm><primary>replace, sed style</primary>
<secondary>search, sed style</secondary></indexterm>
<command>s///[ig]</command> <command>%s///[ig]</command></term>

<listitem>
<para>This command does a sed-like search/replace operation on the
current line, or on the whole file (<command>%s///</command>).</para>

<para>In short, the text is searched for text matching the
<emphasis>search pattern</emphasis>, the regular expression between
the first and the second slash, and when a match is found, the
matching part of the text is replaced with the expression between the
middle and last part of the string. Parentheses in the search pattern
create <emphasis>back references</emphasis>, that is the command
remembers which part of the match matched in the parentheses; these
strings can be reused in the replace pattern, referred to as
<userinput>\1</userinput> for the first set of parentheses,
<userinput>\2</userinput> for the second and so on.</para>

<para>To search for a literal <literal>(</literal> or
<literal>)</literal>, you need to <emphasis>escape</emphasis> it using
a backslash character: <userinput>\(\)</userinput></para>

<para>If you put an <userinput>i</userinput> at the end of the
expression, the matching will be case insensitive. If you put a
<userinput>g</userinput> at the end, all occurrences of the pattern will be
replaced, otherwise only the first occurrence is replaced.</para>

<example>

<title>Replacing text in the current line</title>

<para>Your friendly compiler just stopped, telling you that the class
<classname>myClass</classname> mentioned in line 3902 in your source file
is not defined.</para>

<para>&quot;Buckle!&quot; you think, it is of course
<classname>MyClass</classname>. You go to line 3902, and instead of trying
to find the word in the text, you launch the Editing Command Dialog,
enter <userinput>s/myclass/MyClass/i</userinput>, hit the
<guibutton>OK</guibutton> button, save the file and compile &ndash;
successfully without the error.</para>

</example>

<example>
<title>Replacing text in the whole file</title>

<para>Imagine that you have a file, in which you mention a <quote>Miss
Jensen</quote> several times, when someone comes in and tells you that
she just got married to <quote>Mr Jones</quote>. You want, of course,
to replace each and every occurrence of <quote>Miss Jensen</quote>
with <quote>Ms Jones</quote>.</para>

<para>Enter the command line and issue the command
<userinput>%s/Miss Jensen/Ms Jones/</userinput> and hit return, you
are done.</para>

</example>

<example>
<title>A More Advanced Example</title>

<para>This example makes use of <emphasis>back references</emphasis>
as well as a <emphasis>character class</emphasis> (if you do not know what
that is, please refer to the related documentation mentioned
below).</para>

<para>Suppose you have the following line:

<programlisting>void MyClass::DoStringOps( String      &amp;foo, String &amp;bar String *p, int  &amp;a, int &amp;b )</programlisting>
</para>
<para>Now you realize that this is not nice code, and decide that you
want to use the <constant>const</constant> keyword for all
<quote>address of</quote> arguments, those characterized by the &amp;
operator in front of the argument name. You would also like to
simplify the white space, so that there is only 1 whitespace character
between each word.</para>

<para>Launch the Editing Command Dialog, and enter:
<userinput>s/\s+(\w+)\s+(&amp;)/ const \1 \2/g</userinput> and hit the
<guibutton>OK</guibutton> button. The <userinput>g</userinput> at the end of the expression makes
the regular expression recompile for each match to save the <emphasis>backreferences</emphasis>.</para>

<para>Output:

<computeroutput>void MyClass::DoStringOps( const String &amp;foo, const String &amp;bar String *p, const int &amp;a, const int &amp;b )</computeroutput></para>

<para>Mission completed! Now, what happened? Well, we looked for some
white space (<literal>\s+</literal>) followed by one or more
alphabetic characters (<literal>\w+</literal>) followed by some more
whitespace (<literal>\s+</literal>) followed by an ampersand, and in
the process saved the alphabetic chunk and the ampersand for reuse in
the replace operation. Then we replaced the matching part of our line
with one whitespace followed by <quote>const</quote> followed by one
whitespace followed by our saved alphabetical chunk
(<literal>\1</literal>) followed by one whitespace followed by our
saved ampersand (<literal>\2</literal>)</para>

<para>Now in some cases the alphabetical chunk was
<quote>String</quote>, in some <quote>int</quote>, so using the
character class <literal>\w</literal> and the <literal>+</literal>
quantifier proved a valuable asset.</para>

</example>

</listitem>

</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect3>

<sect3 id="advanced-editing-tools-commandline-commands-navigation">
<title>Commands for navigation</title>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>goto</command><arg>INT line</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>This command navigates to the specified line.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>find</command><arg>pattern</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>This command navigates to the first occurrence of
<userinput>pattern</userinput> according to the configuration. Following
occurrences can be found using
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu><guimenuitem>Find Next</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
(the default shortcut is <keycap>F3</keycap>).</para>
<para>The find command can be configured by appending a colon followed by one or
more options, the form is
<userinput>find:options pattern</userinput>. The
following options are supported:

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>b</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search backwards.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>c</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search from cursor position.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>e</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search in the selection only.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>r</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do regular expression search. If set, you may use
<userinput>\N</userinput> where N is a number to represent captures in the
replacement string.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>s</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do case sensitive search.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>w</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Match whole words only.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</para>

</listitem>

</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><cmdsynopsis><command>ifind</command><arg>pattern</arg></cmdsynopsis></term>
<listitem><para>This command provides <quote>as-you-type</quote> searching. You
can configure the behavior or the search by appending a colon
followed by one or more options, like this:
<userinput>ifind:options pattern</userinput>. Allowed options are

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>b</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search backwards.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>r</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do regular expression search.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>s</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Do case sensitive search.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>c</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Search from cursor position.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect3>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</chapter>
