How to wrap each line in quotes in SublimeText?

Question

Input:

boston beach summer figural yellow blue
boston floral flowers still still-life food pink figural
boston horse pink purple house flowers floral figural

Expected output:

"boston beach summer figural yellow blue"
"boston floral flowers still still-life food pink figural"
"boston horse pink purple house flowers floral figural"

The actual input file has 600+ lines, and I'm looking at a quick way to wrap each line in quotes? Does the method involve using multiple cursors? How about macros?

Solution 1

I would use a multiple cursors approach like this:

Windows

1. Ctrl + A (Select everything)
2. Ctrl + Shift + L (Split into lines)
3. End (Put the cursor at the end of the line)
4. " (Add the quote at the end of the line)
5. Home (Go to the first character of the line)
6. Home (Go to the beginning of the line... like if you have tabs or spaces)
7. " (Add the quote at the beginning of the line)

Mac

1. Cmd + A (Select everything)
2. Cmd + Shift + L (Split into lines)
3. Cmd + → (Put the cursor at the end of the line)
4. " (Add the quote at the end of the line)
5. Cmd + ← (Go to the first character of the line)
6. Cmd + ← (Go to the beginning of the line... like if you have tabs or spaces)
7. " (Add the quote at the beginning of the line)

Solution 2

Method 1:

• no multiple cursors
• + best performance (use for large files)
• - slightly clumsy

Replace (.*) with "\1"

Method 2:

• multiple cursors
• + best in regards to usability/comfort
• - slower for bigger files
• - wont work if the file has empty lines

Ctrl+a, Ctrl+Shift+l, "

Method 3:

• multiple cursors
• + close to #2 as usability, but works always
• - slower for bigger files

Ctrl+a, Ctrl+Shift+l, End, ", Home, "

Solution 3

None of these worked in Sublime Text 3 for a multi-column TSV file with tab spacing.

I found this worked for column 1:

Find: ^\s*\S+
Replace: "$0"

Comments

[sergioFC]

Good answer. You can also find ^|$ and replace for " . This way you don't use capturing groups in find nor $1 in replace, but I really don't know about the performance of this.

[ndnenkov]

@sergioFC, this won't work for the empty lines though. It will insert only one " as there is only one position to match at. But you do have a point that in the cases it does work, it is faster than matching the entire line.

[sergioFC]

You are right it won't work if there are empty lines. Good point.

[Aniket Suryavanshi]

@ndn: I didn't get your first method. When I search for (.*), I get 'Unable to find (.*)' . May be I'm missing something.

[ndnenkov]

@AniketSuryavanshi, you should enable regex search first if you haven't. For most people it's on by default. You can do that by checking the .* icon left of the search bar or by pressing Alt+r when your search is opened.

[Maxime]

For me, method 2 is deleting everything and I'm left with only one quote.

[sscarduzio]

cool, but: how in the name of god I exit this multi cursor mode now??

[Maxime]

Simply click somewhere else. Or use the arrows to go to the bottom or top of the files and get only one cursor. :-)

[ndnenkov]

@sscarduzio or press esc.

[Devplex]

You can do this with fewer steps. After Ctrl+Shift+L just press ". Sublime is smart enough to put quotes on both sides of the selected text.

[Maxime]

@MartijnHeemels If you have empty lines, your method won't work. Sublime is smart... but not enough! ;-)

[Devplex]

@Maxime Thanks, I didn't realize that.

[Neeraj Gupta]

Wow. This answer has saved my day from regexing and substituting . thanks

[Maximus]

You are a god among men. Thanks for saving me a lot of time. But, now that I'm billing my clients hourly I'll need to find some other tasks to do!

[Matt]

@MartijnHeemels that doesn't work with US - International layout. The US layout is fine (I guess you use that one, can you confirm that?). I use US - International so that I can make a ü or é easily.

[Devplex]

@Matt It does work, but you'll need to type a <space> after the double-quote. After all, the computer is waiting to see what comes after the double-quote to determine if you meant to type an accented character. Typing <space> tells it you want the double-quote by itself. I use US International too, though I usually switch to US while programming.

[Matt]

@MartijnHeemels I know, but then i end up with empty quotes/apostrophes, so it doesn't wrap the selection. Switch is indeed an option, and not to hard either.

[Devplex]

@Matt That's strange. I just tested it before posting my comment and in my case it does.