Working efficiently with a good text editor is something that takes deliberate practice. My editor of choice is Emacs, and to improve my emacs skills I found myself wanting a few simple katas which let you practice a bunch of every day text editing scenarios.
So, here is the first in a series of text editor katas. The challenge is simply to transform the first block of text into the second block.
Allen Key Bob Sled Clay Pigeon Cliff Edge
Guy Ropes Jack Hammer Jerry Cann Jim Boot
Jim Equipment Jock Strap Lou Paper Mike Stand
Morris Minor Phillip Screwdriver Ray Gunn Roman Bath
Stanley Knife Terry Towelling Walter Closet Catherine Wheel
Joy Stick Kitty Litter Pearl Necklace Penny Farthing
Jim Nazium Jack Pott Noah Zark Cain Basket
Barb Dwyer Helmut Strap Jim Shorts Peg Basket
Col Pitt Cec Pitt Mary Goround Annette Curtain
Brandon Iron Mike Rowe-chip Lucy Lastic
1. Basket, Cain
2. Basket, Peg
3. Bath, Roman
4. Boot, Jim
5. Cann, Jerry
6. Closet, Walter
7. Curtain, Annette
8. Dwyer, Barb
9. Edge, Cliff
10. Equipment, Jim
11. Farthing, Penny
12. Goround, Mary
13. Gunn, Ray
14. Hammer, Jack
15. Iron, Brandon
16. Key, Allen
17. Knife, Stanley
18. Lastic, Lucy
19. Litter, Kitty
20. Minor, Morris
21. Nazium, Jim
22. Necklace, Pearl
23. Paper, Lou
24. Pigeon, Clay
25. Pitt, Cec
26. Pitt, Col
27. Pott, Jack
28. Ropes, Guy
29. Rowe-chip, Mike
30. Screwdriver, Phillip
31. Shorts, Jim
32. Sled, Bob
33. Stand, Mike
34. Stick, Joy
35. Strap, Helmut
36. Strap, Jock
37. Towelling, Terry
38. Wheel, Catherine
39. Zark, Noah
My personal solution to this kata is something along these lines:
- Replace tab with newline (using C-q C-i and C-q C-j to input tab and newline in emacs)
- Define a keyboard macro that cuts the last name, puts it first and inserts the comma and space.
- Repeat the macro until the end of the file using C-u 0 F4
- Sort the lines using M-x sort-lines
- Define a keyboard macro that inserts the row number using F3 to insert a macro counter when defining the macro. Since the counter is zero based and the list is one based i start the macro at the row above the first name.
- Run the macro until the end of the file
- Align the names using M-x align-repeat (which can be found here)