regex to capture the second space in a line?

Question

I've got the following text:

get close to,be next to,follow in sequence or along designated route/ direction

How would I match the space after the "e" in close and then replace it with a tab?

Although this may be easy to all of you, I've spent 4 hours trying to do this but haven't been successful.

The general rule would be "match only the space after the second word". I've got over 2000 unique lines which is why I need a regex.

Thank you!!

It would be very easy to do this with this specific text .. is there a more general rule you need to follow? What language/regex engine? — Explosion Pills, Nov 06 '14 at 19:58
Yes, the general rule I'd like help on is "always match just the second space in a line. Nothing more, nothing less." I've got to do this 2000 times and then replace the matched space with a tab — user798719, Nov 06 '14 at 20:10
Why do you want to use regex? Why not just use string functions? — anubhava, Nov 06 '14 at 20:23
I'm in a regular text file using vim. You have to use a regex to identify the second space in a line. Don't I? — user798719, Nov 06 '14 at 20:26

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

Search for: ^([^ ]+[ ]+[^ ]+)[ ]
Replace with: \1\t

From the beginning of the line, look for a pattern of non-spaces followed by spaces followed by another set of non-spaces. At the end, match a space character.
The replacement is everything leading up to the final space character, followed by a tab.

Demo: http://regex101.com/r/oS8vV7/1

You may not be able to match only the space you're replacing. That would require a lookbehind of variable length which isn't supported.

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-06T21:13:54.900

1

In vi editor you can use this search/replacement:

:s/^\([[:blank:]]*\w\+[[:blank:]]\+\w\+\)[[:blank:]]\+/\1\t/

Or shorter (thanks to @PeterRincker):

:%s/\v(\w+\zs\s+){2}/\t

edited Nov 06 '14 at 21:13

answered Nov 06 '14 at 20:37

anubhava

761,203
64
569
643

1

A bit shorter: `:%s/\v(\w+\zs\s+){2}/\t` Even shorter: `:%norm 2f r^I` where `^I` is the tab character typed via ``. – Peter Rincker Nov 06 '14 at 21:06

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 30 '16 at 18:47

0

s/\s//2

This can be used to search for a space (\s) and for removing the space, where the 2 represents the second space.

edited Jul 30 '16 at 18:47

Jamal

763
7
22
32

answered Jul 30 '16 at 18:00

Iyswarya

1
1

regex to capture the second space in a line?

3 Answers3