urxvt-selection-autotransform(1)

💅 urxvt-selection-autotransform(1) — the RXVT-UNICODE glow-up 🦋

okay bestie, so this is one of those urxvt helper pages and honestly? it's a little cutie. it's part of the RXVT-UNICODE family, and it's here to make your selections do tricks ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

selection-autotransform — it automatically transforms the text you select, no cap 💫

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the vibe: this selection lets you do automatic transforms on a selection every single time a selection is made. Like, the moment you highlight something, it gets rewrote. main character behaviour honestly 👑

The way it works is you specify perl snippets (and lowkey the most useful one is a single s/// operator, periodt) that modify $_, and you give them to urxvt as resources:

URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: transform
URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: transform
...

Yup, that's it — numbered resources, .0, .1, and so on forever if you want 🌈

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🧚 example time, bestie 🧚

Say you've got selections of the form filename:number — you know, the classic thing that shows up in compiler messages all the time 😭 well, this lil number right here will transform them into vi +$filename $word:

URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/vi +$2 \\Q$1\\E\\x0d/

And this next example matches the same,but replaces it with vi-commands you can paste directly into your (vi :) editor — yes, that's the whole point, chef's kiss 🤌:

URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/

Of course, this can be modified to suit your needs and your editor :) — go off, customize it, make it yours 💖

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🦋 levelling up to perl error messages 🦋

To expand the example above to typical perl error messages (the "XXX at FILENAME line YYY." kind, you've definitely seen them and you've definitely cried a little 🙈), you need a slightly more elaborate solution:

URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+[,.])
URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)[,.]$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/

Let me break it down because it's giving two-step slay 🔥:

• The first line tells the selection code to treat the unchanging part of every error message as a selection pattern 👀
• The second line transforms that message into vi commands to load the file 🎯

fr fr, that's the whole trick. pattern first, transform second, and your compiler errors become clickable-ish little portals into your editor. iconic.

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🫶 and that's the page! cute lil sign-off for you: this was version 9.31, dated 2023-12-02, and it's the urxvt-selection-autotransform(1) page from the RXVT-UNICODE crew. go transform some selections bestie, you've got this ⭐💜