text editor that allows selection of text block, then adds a character at the front of line?

Question

Hi is there a text editor out there that allows me to select a block of text and insert a character to all lines at where I want to? E.g. start of line, end of line, nth position

Answer 1

Yes, there should be many who support this.

In vim you could do that in multiple ways:

• select a visual block with CTRLV and insert with I
• use a regex: :1,$s/^/your text here/

which reminds me that you could directly use the regex with sed (i.e. on the shell).

$ sed -i 's/^/your text here/' $YOUR_FILE_HERE

I believe in emacs this is called M-x string-insert-rectangle.

Answer 2

is there a text editor out there that allows me to

Yes, Emacs.

select a block of text and insert a character to all lines at where I want to? E.g. start of line, end of line, nth position

To insert some text at the Nth column: select the block of text from the Nth column of the first target line to the Nth column of the target last line, then press C-x r t (string-rectangle) and enter the additional text to insert on every line.

To insert some text at the end of the line: select the block of text down to the end of the last line, then run M-x replace-regexp (or press C-M-% or choose “Replace regexp” in the “Edit” menu) to replace the regexp $ (meaning end of line) with the text you want to insert.

(C-x means Ctrl+X; M-x means `Alt+X)

Answer 3

If you don't mind paying for an editor UltraEdit calls that feature "Column Mode". UltraEdit is for Windows & Linux.

If you are on Windows, I believe there are some freeware text editors with that feature, but I can't recall their names right now. If I find them I will update my answer.

Answer 4

You can achieve this with jEdit.

To select a block of text use the Rectangular Selection tool (i.e. hold down Control while selecting)

The Search/Replace tool allows you to search using regular expressions so to find the start of every line the search criteria would simply be "^"