How to Prepend Text to Lines in VS Code and Command Line

Learn how to `prepend text` to lines of text using regex in Visual Studio Code or command-line solutions. Perfect for organizing data!
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/76725333/ asked by the user 'nedlud' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/51882/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/76725457/ provided by the user 'radical7' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1973259/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Prepend Text to Lines in VS Code and Command Line

If you’re working with text files and need to format them for better readability or organization, you might face situations where you need to prepend text to specific lines. This can be especially useful when dealing with structured data, like categories and items. In this post, we will explore how to easily prepend text to lines in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and using command-line tools.

The Problem

Imagine you have a file that looks like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Your goal is to transform it into this format:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The challenge lies in the fact that you may want to add tabs at the beginning of lines that do not contain a dot (.) to maintain alignment. While replacing dots with tabs is straightforward, adding tabs in front of lines without dots is where complexity starts.

Solution Overview

Fortunately, there are straightforward methods to achieve this, both in VS Code and via the command line. Here’s how you can do it.

Solution Using Command Line with awk

One effective way to prepend text to lines is through the command-line utility awk. Here’s a simple command you can use:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Let’s break down how this works:

gsub(/./, " "): This command will replace the period (.) in the lines with a space.

printf "%-15s%s\n": This formats the output. The %-15s specifies the width of the first column—adjust this number as needed to fit your text.

NF == 1 ? " " : $1: This checks if there’s only one field in the line. If so, it prints a space; otherwise, it prints the first field.

Example

You can run the following command to see the formatting in action:

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The output will be:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Alternative Using Tabs

If you prefer to use tabs instead of spaces, you can modify the command as follows:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Note, however, that if the first field is longer than the width of a tab character (usually 8 spaces), the alignment may not appear as desired.

Solution in Visual Studio Code

For those who prefer to work within VS Code using regex, here's a simple regex pattern you can use:

Open the Find and Replace Tool (Command + H on Mac).

Enable Regex Search by clicking the .* button.

Input the following pattern:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Replace it with:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This regex will:

Match any line at the start (^) and capture content that does not include a dot.

Prepend a tab character to those lines.

Conclusion

Prepending text to lines can enhance the organization of your data files significantly. Whether you choose to use the command line with awk or do it directly in Visual Studio Code with regex, both methods provide effective solutions for formatting your text files.

By following the instructions above, you can easily manipulate and format your text, ensuring that lines align properly and are easy to read. Happy coding!

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