Determining first backward search hit

Hi everyone !
Sorry to bother you, I was reffered to here by a friend.
He said that people on this group sometimes help confused people (like
me :-(

I'm editing a file (not a programming language source, but some
coordinates in a fem file, not important) ... and some things in a
file always go in a row, ex. coordinates, some commands etc.
x290.5
y17.5
z22.243234
(no spaces allowed)

so, if the last one is x then y will always come next.
Now, looking at this type of file is tiresome, so I'm trying to write
a plugin which will enable me that if in the last row the first char
is x, to insert in this one y ... and so on.
(the coordinates are just an example, form-station-wl are another
pair).

This doesn't seem too difficult, I think I will be able to get it to
work with a system of if loops.
But what I can't understand is how to "grab" the first character in
previous row, so I can
if char=="x"
execute ...

Please help, I would be more than grateful on all your suggestions.
Lana

Lana <lana@sorry_no_mail_-_i_hate_spam.com> wrote:
> But what I can't understand is how to "grab" the first character in
> previous row, so I can
> if char=="x"
> execute ...

In Vim:

if strpart(getline(line(".")-1), 0, 1) == "x"
exe ...
endif


Johannes