How to replace a character with a newline in Emacs?

I am trying to replace a character - say ; - with a new line using replace-string and/or replace-regexp in Emacs.

I have tried the following commands:

M-x replace-string RET ; RET \n

This will replace ; with 2 characters: \n.
M-x replace-regex RET ; RET \n

This results in the following error (shown in the minibuffer):

Invalid use of `\' in replacement text.

What's wrong with using replace-string for this task? Is there any other way to do it?

Thanks.

M-x replace-string RET ; RET C-q C-j.

Cheers!

There are four ways I've found to put a newline into the minibuffer.

C-o
C-q C-j
C-q 12 (12 is the octal value of newline)
C-x o to the main window, kill a newline with C-k, then C-x o back to the minibuffer, yank it with C-y

Don't forget that you can always cut and paste into the minibuffer.

So you can just copy a newline character (or any string) from your buffer, then yank it when prompted for the replacement text.

More explicitly:

To replace the semi colon character (;) with a newline, follow these exact steps.

locate cursor at upper left of buffer containing text you want to change
Type m-x replace-string and hit RETURN
the mini-buffer will display something like this: Replace string (default ^ -> ):
Type in the character you want to replace. In this case, ; and hit RETURN
the mini-buffer will display something like this: string ; with:
Now execute C-q C-j
All instances of semi-colon will be replaced a newline (from the cursor location to the end of the buffer will now appear)

Bit more to it than the original explanation says.

Switch to text-mode

M-x text-mode

Highlight block to indent

Indent

C+M \

Switch back to whatever mode..

inline just: C-M-S-% (if binding keys still default) than replace-string^J

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/613022/how-to-replace-a-character-with-a-newline-in-emacs

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