Grayson Peddie's Website

Vim: How to Delete Text Enclosed In Quotes

Instructions

Navigate to the first character after the quote/double-quote and type the following in Vim:

di"

This is useful if you have something like the following:

{
    "title": "Vim: How to Delete Text Enclosed In Quotes",
    "permalink": "vim-how-to-delete-text-enclosed-in-quotes",
    "published": "2023-08-12 14:00",
    "categoryIDs": "5,5:0,5:1,5:5",
    "description": "In Vim, 'di\"' is the one to use for deleting text in quotes.",
    "thumbnail": "",
    "smallimage": "",
    "largeimage": ""
}

So, to navigate to the first character that starts with a double-quote, simply type /"e; and the insertion point will highlight the double-quote. To get to the next double-quote, press the n key again until you get to the one you want. After that, press the l key to move to the first character and type the following:

di"

The output will be as follows:

{
    "title": "",
    "permalink": "vim-how-to-delete-text-enclosed-in-quotes",
    "published": "2023-08-12 14:00",
    "categoryIDs": "5,5:0,5:1,5:5",
    "description": "In Vim, 'di\"' is the one to use for deleting text in quotes.",
    "thumbnail": "",
    "smallimage": "",
    "largeimage": ""
}

And now, you can type whatever you want by pressing the i key on your keyboard. Press the ESC (escape) key to get out of INSERT mode and back into normal mode. To save changes and quit the Vim text editor, type :wq.

Bonus: If you have delimiters with quotes while writing the code such as:

"This is some \"quote\"!"

Vim will automatically delete the delimiters with quotes along with them, so performing di" will delete everything that is in between quotes.

""

And you do not need to be inside quotes in order to delete inside the quotes! How cool is that? *grinning face*

Oh, and you can also use the "change inside" sequence as well:

ci"

Audience

This is for Linux users experienced in using the Vim text editor. Vim users should already know the basics such as :q! for quitting the text editor without saving changes, :wq for saving changes and quitting the text editor, i for going into INSERT mode and use the ESC (escape) key to get back into normal mode. All keyboard commands are beyond the scope of this short article that I wrote.

Conclusion

Hopefully this keyboard command can be of help to you. If you are a Linux user, please give Vim a try.

Original Source

In Vim, how can I delete everything between quotes including the quotes?

Note that I was searching for information about deleting text inside quotes and not including the quotes.

Article published: 2023-08-12 14:00

Categories: The World of Computers, Computers, Information Technology, Scripting and Programming

Use $HOME, not /home/$USER in BASH scripts

Audience

This article is for experienced Linux users who are familar with environment variables such as $HOME and $USER. These are the Linux users who are familiar with the command line.

Problem and Solution

Here is an example not to use /home/$USER:

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password: 
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
touch: cannot touch '/home/gpadmin/Templates/Text file': No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
-bash: /home/gpadmin/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version: No such file or directory
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter 
  ~
$

And here's the script (/etc/profile) that illustrates an example:

# fix gnome missing 'New file' option
if [ ! -f /home/$USER/Templates/"Text file" ]
then
    mkdir -p /home/$USER/Templates
    touch /home/$USER/Templates/"Text file"
fi

# ...

# this is a hack to bypass the Davinci Resolve new install Welcome/Onboarding screen since it does not render properly and is not required.
if [ ! -f /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version ];then
    mkdir -p /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/
    echo "Onboarding.Version=10" > /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version
fi

To fix this issue, simply replace all instances of /home/$USER with $HOME. I am familiar with a text editor called Vim. It's a program that runs inside a terminal, similar to the Command Prompt or PowerShell in Windows.

Before we proceed any further, let's create a backup copy of /etc/profile:

sudo cp /etc/profile /etc/profile.bak

If anything goes wrong, you now have a backup. You can simply use the cp (copy) command to restore from the backup. Now let's begin.

1. First, open the Terminal (Konsole in KDE).

2. As root (or with sudo privileges), type the following command:

   sudo vim /etc/profile

3. Type in the following command, starting with a colon:

   :%s/\/home\/$USER/$HOME/g

   The syntax for search and replace in Vim is as follows:

   :%s/search/replace/g

   Let's not concern ourselves with g at the end for now. Basically this command replaces "search" with the next text "replace." In other words, we want to replace /home/$USER with $HOME.

   Let's have a look at the script again:

   # fix gnome missing 'New file' option
   if [ ! -f $HOME/Templates/"Text file" ]
   then
       mkdir -p $HOME/Templates
       touch $HOME/Templates/"Text file"
   fi
   
   # ...
   
   # this is a hack to bypass the Davinci Resolve new install Welcome/Onboarding screen since it does not render properly and is not required.
   if [ ! -f $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version ];then
       mkdir -p $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/
       echo "Onboarding.Version=10" > $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version
   fi

   So why would we want to replace /home/$USER with $HOME? That /home/$USER should still work!

   Let's look at the output again after we save the changes.

4. Save the changes to the /etc/profile file.

   :wq

   A : begins a command. w writes changes to the file and q quits Vim

   If you don't want to make changes to the file, then all you have to do is type :q! to exit without saving any changes.

As I mentioned, let's look at the output again when I log into my administrator account from a user account.

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password:
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
touch: cannot touch '/home/gpadmin/Templates/Text file': No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
-bash: /home/gpadmin/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version: No such file or directory
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter
  ~
$

Now, let's see the new output when I log back in as an administrator.

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password: 
Last login: Sat Mar 18 11:13:52 EDT 2023 on pts/0
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter 
  ~
$

I have covered more explanation regarding how this works and I have discussed a scenario in my article.

Article published: 2023-03-18 15:37

Categories: The World of Computers, Computers, Information Technology, Scripting and Programming

Backup Your WordPress or ClassicPress Files, Configuration, and Database with a Single Script

Audience and Prerequisites

Skip to scenario if you want to jump into the main article.

This is for anyone who currently host their WordPress or ClassicPress in a virtual private server such as DigitalOcean, Linode, or any other VPS providers. Any Linux user with knowledge of command line can perform backups and restoration tasks. You must be familiar with Linux and you know how to connect to your production server via SSH.

Plus, this article assumes that you have installed and configured WordPress in your VPS server. In addition, this article assumes you can perform basic database administration tasks such as adding a new database along with creating a new user for WordPress or ClassicPress. If your hosting provider provides managed WordPress or ClassicPress hosting, then this article may not apply to you. And because this article is for those who currently run a VPS server, I am going to have to assume that you have some hands-on experience with the Linux command line. This article need not apply to non-technical Linux, Mac, and Windows users. When I say non-technical Linux users, I'm talking about those who wanted to get away from Windows or Mac and simply wanted to use Linux just to browse the Internet and not deal with the command line.

Last, but not least, I am also going to assume that you know how to configure your Apache server as well. Both Apache and NGINX (pronounced Engine-X) configurations won't be covered here, including backing up and copying certificates that you get from your hosting provider.

If you are interested in learning Linux, a tutorial from Guru99 will help get you started on learning Linux.

Are you ready? Then let's get started!

Scenario

You have your own VPS server that is running ClassicPress. Your domain name is exmaple.com and your SSH port number is (insert your TCP port number here). You have a development server for developing your own custom ClassicPress theme and you want to use your development server to backup everything from your production server.

Article published: 2022-11-17 08:47

Categories: The World of Computers, Information Technology, Internet, Networking, Scripting and Programming

New Addition to my Website: Pagination (ClassicPress)

As a web developer of my website, I have implemented pagination that allows anyone to view more posts by page and be able to view blog posts by month and year. I created a custom theme from scratch so that I can personalize my website to my liking. I wanted to give the pagination system an "electronic" look.

For those with eyesight, you can click in the image to see a full screen of my desktop that shows the pagination system in effect.

The code for the pagination system for ClassicPress can be found in this full article.

Article published: 2021-05-01 08:57

Categories: The World of Computers, Scripting and Programming