Cron – vi syntax to comment out non-commented lines (cron)

cronsedunixvi

Anyone know if it's possible in vi to replace only uncommented/non-blank lines with comments?

If I want to replace a commented line with something I know I can use :%s/^#/##foo##/g — but I am looking for the opposite of this.

Example file:

# Some user's cron

# Test comments
00 00 * * * ~/somescript.sh

Expected result:

# Some user's cron

# Test comments
##DISABLE##00 00 * * * ~/somescript.sh

Best Answer

:g/^[0-9\*]/s/^/##DISABLED##/

This "g/RE/" part selects all lines that begin with a number or the * character. The "s/RE/replacement/" then does the work on all selected lines.

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