[HN Gopher] Codex - Find and Replace for Code
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Codex - Find and Replace for Code
Most code editors' find & replace features are still very close to
the original design intended for text documents, so they become
unwieldy when you need to match across newlines and indentation for
example, or when a parse of the code is necessary to capture a
particular expression. Codex (https://codex-kappa-
dusky.vercel.app/) is an attempt to rethink what find & replace
should look like in a modern code editor. It defines a simple but
powerful syntax for describing code modifications, combining plain
text, regular expressions and Tree-sitter queries, along with
sensible handling of newlines and indentation*. It can be used
just like regular plain text find & replace, but allows freely
mixing in regexes and Tree-sitter queries as more flexibility is
needed. It introduces "line quantifiers" for matching a bunch of
lines at the same nesting level, so basic structural changes can be
achieved without even using a query (see the JavaScript function
example in the link). I designed Codex with a specific use case in
mind (the one I show in my demo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_N0-AJ2Qg), so any suggestions
for other things it should support would be much appreciated, as
well as general feedback. *Indentation is relative and space/tab
agnostic.
Author : gushogg-blake
Score : 27 points
Date : 2023-01-18 08:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (codex-kappa-dusky.vercel.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (codex-kappa-dusky.vercel.app)
| gregwebs wrote:
| This looks neat, how do I try it out? Semgrep is nice for simple
| modifications but poor at multi line. Comby works well a lot of
| the time but I really need something more sophisticated. More
| sophisticated often means language specific but I would like to
| have a language independent tool like this.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| The latest version is in my editor project at
| https://gitlab.com/gushogg-blake/edita-release. It will apply
| changes but it's just the minimal functionality at the moment,
| there is no feedback after you press the Replace all button. My
| process is to use the editor and write whatever I most need on
| it right now so not sure when I'll get round to fleshing it
| out.
|
| Ideally other editors will take inspiration from it and add
| their own implementations. The code is available for reference
| here and I'd be happy to go over it in detail with anyone who
| wants to: https://gitlab.com/gushogg-blake/edita-
| release/-/tree/main/s....
| joshka wrote:
| Meta-note: do you have any concerns about overloading the name
| "Codex"? There are quite a few software products and companies
| named this.
|
| This is pretty cool. I wonder though if the tree sitter query
| syntax is the right thing to directly expose. This is definitely
| useful beneath the hood for people writing specific refactoring
| patterns, but it would seem overkill for general dev. Is there
| some syntax that looks closer to regexes for this (tree sitter
| inside regex rather than regex inside tree sitter)?
|
| I wonder if attacking this problem at one level up say the LSP
| level could be a good idea.
| rockwotj wrote:
| > Is there some syntax that looks closer to regexes for this
| (tree sitter inside regex rather than regex inside tree
| sitter)?
|
| I wonder if you could add escapes for specific syntax features,
| something like:
|
| \z{FunctionName=Foo}
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| I've renamed it to CodeMatch for now, still taken but hopefully
| not by anything too similar.
| [deleted]
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| Yeah that is definitely a concern, I mostly just needed a name
| so went with it - another canidate was CodeExp going with the
| regex/p analogy. But definitely open to something else
| entirely.
|
| Yes a simpler syntax would be good - I was surprised at how
| complex the query got for the use case I designed it for. I do
| like the separation of queries and regex though, and keeping
| the whole structure as regex and queries inside plain text, as
| it starts you off in the simplest mode (just text) and lets you
| add flexibility as needed (although it does mean some chars
| have to be escaped).
| fizx wrote:
| I've often wanted to extend the https://selectorgadget.com
| algorithm to be able to do find & replace on code ASTs, instead
| of the DOM tree.
|
| It'd be pretty cool to be able to find-by-example, selecting
| snippets of code and having the algorithm tell you what they all
| have in common.
| ttcbj wrote:
| This is interesting, but to be honest it's more learning than I
| personally want to take on for this use case.
|
| One feature that I miss from code editors is "record actions".
| The last time I remember having it was maybe in visual studio
| around the late 90s. It would record whatever you did
| (keystrokes/copy paste/find replace/etc). At that time, I found
| that I could often address use cases similar to those I think you
| are targeting by thoughtfully recording the right sequence of
| actions.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| Have you tried Komodo Edit? It has Macros which is what I used
| to use for this kind of thing.
| gushogg-blake wrote:
| Could you explain in more detail what makes it too much of a
| learning investment for you/what might improve it? It's always
| hard to see which bits are non intuitive when you've designed
| something.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Xcode does this but only for the last 10 or so queries. I
| wonder if that is somehow configurable in an undocumented user
| default...
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Regex search and replace is table stakes for a code editor. All
| the way back to ed ;-)
|
| Tree-sitter queries is an interesting addition. That and bazel
| build system queries seem like a step up in editing and compiling
| code.
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