I found this useful Sublime Text plugin when figuring out how to perform a series of text replacements en masse. Called Reg Replace, it allows me to create commands for whatever Find-and-Replace operations I want.

First, I installed it using Sublime Text's Package Control: Preferences > Package Control, then Install Package, then typing in RegReplace, then pressed Enter.

Once it's installed, the quick start guide appears. It may seem like a lot to take in at first, but it's actually fairly simple.

Rules

The first thing I needed to do is create a rule. To do this, I can do this in two ways:

1. Using the wizard: perform the command (Tools > Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P), then RegReplace: Create New Regular Expression Rule)
2. Edit the Rules - User file directly: Preferences > Package Settings > RegReplace > Rules - User

With the wizard, it opens up a new panel in Sublime Text, where I can fill out the required fields indicated. Make sure for the ones that indicate str that the values are wrapped in quotation marks. Then, once I feel the rule is completed, I simply save it with Ctrl + S.

At this point, opening up RegReplace > Rules - User will now show the new rule!

After running the wizard once and creating my first rule, I prefer to edit the file directly from then on. Here is what mine looks like after my first rule:

{
    "replacements":
    {
        "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods":
        {
            "find": "…",
            "literal": true,
            "name": "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods",
            "replace": "..."
        }
    }
}

The basics are very simple: give the rule a name, what it should find, what it should replace it with, and indicate whether the change is literal (e.g. is it a non-regex change).

Here is my file after creating a second one (replacing "", with an empty string):

{
    "replacements":
    {
        "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods":
        {
            "find": "…",
            "literal": true,
            "name": "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods",
            "replace": "..."
        },
        "remove_empty_string_and_comma":
        {
            "find": "\"\",",
            "literal": true,
            "name": "remove_empty_string_and_comma",
            "replace": ""
        }
    }
}

Commands

Next is the creation of Sublime Text commands. Remember how I pulled up the Command Palette? I can create my own custom command to run whatever RegReplace rules I want, in the order I want. That's powerful!

Here is where to create commands: Preferences > Package Settings > RegReplace > Commands - User. This opens up the Default.sublime-commands file.

It's empty at the moment, but that will change soon. It takes in an array of JSON objects. You can find an example on RegReplace's documention.

This is what my Default.sublime-commands file looks like after creating a command.

[
    {
        "caption": "RegReplace: Replace ellipses with ...",
        "command": "reg_replace",
        "args" : {
            "replacements": [
                "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods"
            ],
            "find_only": true
        }
    },
]

Notice how replacements is an array? That means it can take multiple rules!

So I can create this command:

[
    {
        "caption": "RegReplace: Replace ellipses with ... and remove empty strings with comma",
        "command": "reg_replace",
        "args" : {
            "replacements": [
                "replace_ellipses_with_three_periods",
                "remove_empty_string_and_comma"
            ],
            "find_only": true
        }
    },

]

Now I can run it through the Command Palette. With a quick key shortcut of Ctrl + Shift + P and typing in a part of the command name, it will appear!

This is really powerful and helps automate find-and-replace operations for me.