Question

I have a regex to replace a certain pattern with a certain string, where the string is built dynamically by repeating a certain character as many times as there are characters in the match.

For example, say I have the following substitution command:

%s/hello/-----/g

However, I would like to do something like this instead:

%s/hello/-{5}/g

where the non-existing notation -{5} would stand for the dash character repeated five times.

Is there a way to do this?

Ultimately, I’d like to achieve something like this:

%s/(hello)*/-{\=strlen(\0)}/g

which would replace any instance of a string of only hellos with the string consisting of the dash character repeated the number of times equal to the length of the matched string.

Answer 1

%s/\v(hello)*/\=repeat('-',strlen(submatch(0)))/g