44.5 Search and Replace

Function: perform-replace from-string replacements query-flag regexp-flag delimited-flag &optional repeat-count map

This function is the guts of query-replace and related commands. It searches for occurrences of from-string and replaces some or all of them. If query-flag is nil, it replaces all occurrences; otherwise, it asks the user what to do about each one.

If regexp-flag is non-nil, then from-string is considered a regular expression; otherwise, it must match literally. If delimited-flag is non-nil, then only replacements surrounded by word boundaries are considered.

The argument replacements specifies what to replace occurrences with. If it is a string, that string is used. It can also be a list of strings, to be used in cyclic order.

If repeat-count is non-nil, it should be an integer. Then it specifies how many times to use each of the strings in the replacements list before advancing cyclicly to the next one.

Normally, the keymap query-replace-map defines the possible user responses for queries. The argument map, if non-nil, is a keymap to use instead of query-replace-map.

Variable: query-replace-map

This variable holds a special keymap that defines the valid user responses for query-replace and related functions, as well as y-or-n-p and map-y-or-n-p. It is unusual in two ways:

• The “key bindings” are not commands, just symbols that are meaningful to the functions that use this map.
• Prefix keys are not supported; each key binding must be for a single event key sequence. This is because the functions don’t use read key sequence to get the input; instead, they read a single event and look it up “by hand.”

Here are the meaningful “bindings” for query-replace-map. Several of them are meaningful only for query-replace and friends.

act

Do take the action being considered—in other words, “yes.”

skip

Do not take action for this question—in other words, “no.”

exit

Answer this question “no,” and give up on the entire series of questions, assuming that the answers will be “no.”

act-and-exit

Answer this question “yes,” and give up on the entire series of questions, assuming that subsequent answers will be “no.”

act-and-show

Answer this question “yes,” but show the results—don’t advance yet to the next question.

automatic

Answer this question and all subsequent questions in the series with “yes,” without further user interaction.

backup

Move back to the previous place that a question was asked about.

edit

Enter a recursive edit to deal with this question—instead of any other action that would normally be taken.

delete-and-edit

Delete the text being considered, then enter a recursive edit to replace it.

recenter

Redisplay and center the window, then ask the same question again.

quit

Perform a quit right away. Only y-or-n-p and related functions use this answer.

help

Display some help, then ask again.