Updated utils.lua

M@clean_buffer no longer escapes sequences (caused undesirable
behaviour).

Added M@get_selection which will return four values indicating the
starting row/column and ending row/column of a visual-mode selection. If
no selection has been performed in buffer instance, values may be -1.
Value is "cached" as defined Vim behaviour of '< and '> positions.

Added M@subslice is used to get a substring of a word between two
whitespace characters (i.e., spaces). The `line` is the string to check,
and `col` is a position (e.g., from the cursor) within the word which
will be extracted. Return value is a table of starting and ending
indices of the original string.

lua/presser/utils.lua

@@ -31,8 +31,32 @@ M.clean_buf = function ( text )
     return ""
   end
 
-  return escape_chars( text )
+  return text:match( "^%s*(.-)%s*$" )
-    :match( "^%s*(.-)%s*$" )
+end
+
+
+M.get_selection = function()
+  local _, csrow, cscol, _ = unpack(vim.fn.getpos("'<"))
+  local _, cerow, cecol, _ = unpack(vim.fn.getpos("'>"))
+  if csrow < cerow or (csrow == cerow and cscol <= cecol) then
+    return csrow - 1, cscol - 1, cerow - 1, cecol
+  else
+    return cerow - 1, cecol - 1, csrow - 1, cscol
+  end
+end
+
+
+M.subslice = function(line, col)
+    local i = 0
+    local j = 0
+    while true do
+      j = string.find(line, " ", j+1)    -- find 'next' newline
+      if  j == nil then break end
+      if j > col then break end
+      i = j
+    end
+
+    return { i, j }
 end