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I am using VS Code (with vim plugin), how would I insert text after the first word of each sentence on multiple lines? I would like to know how to do this strictly with multi-cursor, not macros, search/replace, etc.
I would like to turn this:
Hi how are you?
Ahoy how are you?
Howdy how are you?
into this:
Hi, how are you?
Ahoy, how are you?
Howdy, how are you?
Use a single command
:%norm ea,
: ................... command mode
% ................... whole file
norm ............... normal mode
e .................. end of a word
a .................. append charactere
The easiest is to select your lines with Selection/Column Selection Mode enabled. Select the first column (there are other ways to get a cursor at the beginning of each of your selected lines - such as
(1) Select all your lines
(2) Shift+Alt+I to put a cursor at the end of each line
(3) Home to move all those to the beginning
Then you'll need to bind this command
cursorWordPartRight
to some keybinding. Trigger that keybinding and type your ,.
Is there a difference between :+d+CR and d+d in normal mode in vim?
It seems the former is an Ex command and they have the same effect.
There are some commands that are only in visual mode, and some commands only in ex mode; but there are some commands in both. Deleting a line is in both.
In visual mode, you make up a command with three possible parts: a count, a command, and what the command should operate upon. The basic delete command is d, and you can combine it with movement commands: move to next word is w, delete to next word is dw; move to next paragraph is }, delete to next paragraph is d} and so on. As a special shortcut, dd deletes a line. You can delete three lines with 3dd. But note that there are many, many ways to delete part of a line.
In ex mode, the delete command can only operate on whole lines. You can prefix the delete command with line numbers to delete a range of lines: :1,10d<Enter> would delete lines 1 through 10. You can mark a line with mark b and mark another line with mark e and then delete from the one to the other like so: :'b,'ed<Enter> And you can delete the current three lines by following d with a count: :d3<Enter>
In ex mode, to operate within a line you need to use the s command (substitute). To change hamburger to hot dog you would use: :s/hamburger/hot dog/<Enter>
In a sense, ex mode came first. The first editor was called ed and ex was a super-set of the features of ed, and then added visual editing.
With :d, you can add an integer after it to specify how many lines to delete. With dd, you delete one line only.
For example, using :d3 will delete three lines; of course, if you just use :d with no number following it, there is no difference.
EDIT: Thanks to steveha and BenjaminRH for clarifying below - it turns out you can delete using dd by using a number before it. You can also repeat dd by using a ..
Here is the text I'm working on:
line1: website = "a.com";
...
line3: website = "b.com";
...
line5: website = "c.com";
Suppose I want to change all website to "stackoverflow.com", I can do:
- change "a.com" to "stackoverflow.com"
- yank the whole line (Y)
- go to line3, hit p, k, dd to paste from buffer and delete the old "b.com" line.
Now the problem is that since dd puts the "b.com" into the buffer, to replace line5 I'll have to yank the whole line again.
Is there any simple way so that I can replace line3 and line5 with the already yanked line quickly?
UPDATE:
Thanks for the answers, now there are several ways doing it: delete to black hole, yank from named buffer, etc. I found this being my favorite method ( I use key R instead r as sometime I need to replace a single character):
In Vim is there a way to delete without putting text in the register?
I put some links to similar SO questions below:
How to Delete (desired text), delete (undesired text), and paste (desired text) in Vim
In Vim is there a way to delete without putting text in the register?
First things first
You can go one better by not needing to explicitly delete the line:
yank the whole line into register x: "xY
go to the next line to replace
visually select the whole line: V
paste over the selection from register x: "xp
Now the deleted line is in register ", as always, but the yanked line is still in register x, so you can repeat steps 2 through 4 without having to yank over and over.
Repeated things repeated
Unfortunately you cannot use . to repeat steps 3+4. So if you have to do this for a lot of lines, insert a few more steps to record a macro:
yank the whole line into a register x: "xY
go to the next line to replace
record a macro into the w register: qw
visually select the whole line: V
paste over the selection from register x: "xp
stop recording: q
go to the next line to replace
replay the macro recorded into w: #w
go to the next line to replace
and now finally, you can replay same-as-last-time: ##
Then you can simply repeat steps 9 and 10 for the next 50 lines you need to replace.
Last (repeated) things last
In fact, if you find the next line by searching, then you should use that search to go to the first line as well. Because then the n that you use to go to the next line can be included as part of the macro – basically you just swap steps 6 and 7.
Then you don’t have to manually go to the next line to replace at all, because the macro will send you there as the last thing it does. You can just keep hitting ##, along with any occasional ns whenever you happen to want to skip a particular match.
References
help "
help registers
help complex-repeat
You can use named buffers for this instead of the default unnamed buffer: "lY then "lp to yank resp. paste from register l, then let the dd use the default buffer.
This is not an answer to your question as put but it is an answer to your real question, I think.
Technique 1: Are you aware of :s? If you are just wanting to replace all matches, you could do something like this:
:%s/^website = "\zs.*\ze\.com";$/stackoverflow/
As you haven't specified precise format of it all and whether or not you are wanting to replace all or only some, I can't say whether this is what you want or not.
Technique 1b: Even if you only want to replace some, there's a useful and not terribly widely known flag for :s: c, "confirm". (See :help :s_flags and more specifically :help :s_c.) Then you can decide with each one whether you want to replace it or not.
:%s/^website = "\zs.*\ze\.com";$/stackoverflow/c
Technique 2: You could also search, replace and then repeat. /^website = "\zs.*\ze\.com";$, then cwstackoverflowEsc to replace the word with "stackoverflow". Then n to go to the next match and if you want to replace it with "stackoverflow", use ..
Rereading this question I think this is closer to what you're after:
In Vim is there a way to delete without putting text in the register?
E.g. instead of using dd use "_dd
The "0 register always contain your last yanked text. Then you can do:
change "a.com" to "stackoverflow.com"
yank the whole line (Y)
go to line3, hit "0p, k, dd to paste from buffer and delete the old "b.com" line.
go to line5, hit "0p, k, dd to paste from buffer and delete the old "c.com" line.
ci" - change inside the ""
ctrl-r 0 - put default register
jj - move down two lines
. - repeat last command
jj
.
In vim, I often find myself deleting (or copying) large blocks of text. One can count the lines of text and say (for example) 50dd to delete 50 lines.
But how would one delete this large block of text without having to know how many lines to delete?
Go to the starting line and type ma (mark "a"). Then go to the last line and enter d'a (delete to mark "a").
That will delete all lines from the current to the marked one (inclusive). It's also compatible with vi as well as vim, on the off chance that your environment is not blessed with the latter.
I'm no vim guru, but what I use in this circumstance is "visual mode". In command mode, type V (capital). Then move up/down to highlight the block you want deleted (all the usual movement commands work). Then remove it with x or d.
You can use the visual mode also (some commands are usable with the delete option also)
vip vap to select paragraph, v2ap to select two paragraphs
dap works, d2ap also. You can delete within blocks of [ ] like da[
For reference: the types of objects.
From vim documentation : section 4. http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/visual.html
4. Operating on the Visual area *visual-operators*
...
The objects that can be used are:
aw a word (with white space)
iw inner word
aW a WORD (with white space)
iW inner WORD
as a sentence (with white space)
is inner sentence
ap a paragraph (with white space)
ip inner paragraph
ab a () block (with parenthesis)
ib inner () block
aB a {} block (with braces)
iB inner {} block
a< a <> block (with <>)
i< inner <> block
a[ a [] block (with [])
i[ inner [] block
There are many better answers here, but for completeness I will mention the method I used to use before reading some of the great answers mentioned above.
Suppose you want to delete from lines 24-39. You can use the ex command
:24,39d
You can also yank lines using
:24,39y
And find and replace just over lines 24-39 using
:24,39s/find/replace/g
It sort of depends on what that large block is. Maybe you just mean to delete a paragraph in which case a dip would do.
If you turn on line numbers via set number you can simply dNNG which will delete to line NN from the current position. So you can navigate to the start of the line you wish to delete and simply d50G assuming that is the last line you wish to delete.
There are several possibilities, what's best depends on the text you work on.
Two possibilities come to mind:
switch to visual mode (V, S-V,
...), select the text with cursor
movement and press d
delete a whole paragraph with: dap
If the entire block is visible on the screen, you can use relativenumber setting. See :help relativenumber. Available in 7.3
Counting lines is too tedious for me, but counting 'paragraphs' isn't so bad. '{' and '}' move the cursor to the first empty line before and after the cursor, respectively. Cursor moving operations can be combined with deletion, and several other answers used a similar approach (dd for a line, dG for the end of the document, etc.)
For example:
/* Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. */
Lorem *ipsum(void) {
return dolor(sit, amet);
}
If your cursor starts above the comment block, 'd}' deletes the comment block, and 'd2}' deletes both the comment block and the code block. If your cursor starts below the code block, 'd{' deletes the code, and 'd2{' deletes both. Of course, you can skip over one block by moving the cursor first: '{d{' or '}d}'.
If you're consistent with your whitespace, or you can count the paragraphs at a glance, this should work. The Vim help file has more cursor tricks if you're interested.
You could place your cursor at the beginning or end of the block and enter visual mode (shift-v). Then simply move up or down until the desired block is highlighted. Finally, copy the text by pressing y or cut the text by pressing d.
Alongside with other motions that are already mentioned here, there is also /{pattern}<CR> motion, so if you know that you want to delete to line that contains foo, you could do dV/foo<CR>. V is here to force motion be line-wise because by default / is characterwise.
You can also enter a very large number, and then press dd if you wish to delete all the lines below the cursor.
Deleting a block of text
Assuming your cursor sits at the beginning of the block:
V/^$<CR>d (where <CR> is the enter/return key)
Explanation
Enter "linewise-visual" mode: V
Highlight until the next empty line: /^$<CR>
Delete: d
Key binding
A more robust solution:
:set nowrapscan
:nnoremap D V/^\s*$\\|\%$<CR>d
Explanation
Disable search wrap: :set nowrapscan
Remap the D key (to the following commands): :nnoremap D
Enter "linewise-visual" mode: V
Highlight until the next empty/whitespace line or EOF: /^\s*$\\|\%$<CR>
Delete: d
Selecting a large amount of text that extends over many screens in an IDE like Eclipse is fairly easy since you can use the mouse, but what is the best way to e.g. select and delete multiscreen blocks of text or write e.g. three large methods out to another file and then delete them for testing purposes in Vim when using it via putty/ssh where you cannot use the mouse?
I can easily yank-to-the-end-of-line or yank-to-the-end-of-code-block but if the text extends over many screens, or has lots of blank lines in it, I feel like my hands are tied in Vim. Any solutions?
And a related question: is there a way to somehow select 40 lines, and then comment them all out (with "#" or "//"), as is common in most IDEs?
Well, first of all, you can set vim to work with the mouse, which would allow you to select text just like you would in Eclipse.
You can also use the Visual selection - v, by default. Once selected, you can yank, cut, etc.
As far as commenting out the block, I usually select it with VISUAL, then do
:'<,'>s/^/# /
Replacing the beginning of each line with a #. (The '< and '> markers are the beginning and and of the visual selection.
Use markers.
Go to the top of the text block you want to delete and enter
ma
anywhere on that line. No need for the colon.
Then go to the end of the block and enter the following:
:'a,.d
Entering ma has set marker a for the character under the cursor.
The command you have entered after moving to the bottom of the text block says "from the line containing the character described by marker a ('a) to the current line (.) delete."
This sort of thing can be used for other things as well.
:'a,.ya b - yank from 'a to current line and put in buffer 'b'
:'a,.ya B - yank from 'a to current line and append to buffer 'b'
:'a,.s/^/#/ - from 'a to current line, substitute '#' for line begin
(i.e. comment out in Perl)
:'s,.s#^#//# - from 'a to current line, substitute '//' for line begin
(i.e. comment out in C++)
N.B. 'a (apostrophe-a) refers to the line containing the character marked by a. ``a(backtick-a) refers to the character marked bya`.
To insert comments select the beginning characters of the lines using CTRL-v (blockwise-visual, not 'v' character wise-visual or 'V' linewise-visual). Then go to insert-mode using 'I', enter your comment-character(s) on the first line (for example '#') and finally escape to normal mode using 'Esc'. Voila!
To remove the comments use blockwise-visual to select the comments and just delete them using 'x'.
Use the visual block command v (or V for whole lines and C-V for rectangular blocks). While in visual block mode, you can use any motion commands including search; I use } frequently to skip to the next blank line. Once the block is marked, you can :w it to a file, delete, yank, or whatever. If you execute a command and the visual block goes away, re-select the same block with gv. See :help visual-change for more.
I think there are language-specific scripts that come with vim that do things like comment out blocks of code in a way that fits your language of choice.
Press V (uppercase V) and then press 40j to select 40 lines and then press d to delete them. Or as #zigdon replied, you can comment them out.
The visual mode is the solution for your main problem. As to commenting out sections of code, there are many plugins for that on vim.org, I am using tComment.vim at the moment.
There is also a neat way to comment out a block without a plugin. Lets say you work in python and # is the comment character. Make a visual block selection of the column you want the hash sign to be in, and type I#ESCAPE. To enter a visual block mode press C-q on windows or C-v on linux.
My block comment technique:
Ctrl+V to start blockwise visual mode.
Make your selection.
With the selection still active, Shift+I. This put you into column insert mode.
Type you comment characters '#' or '//' or whatever.
ESC.
Or you may want to give this script a try...
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=23
For commenting out lines, I would suggest one of these plugins:
EnhancedCommentify
NERD Commenter
I find myself using NERD more these days, but I've used EnhancedCommentify for years.
If you want to perform an action on a range of lines, and you know the line numbers, you can put the range on the command line. For instance, to delete lines 20 through 200 you can do:
:20,200d
To move lines 20 through 200 to where line 300 is you can use:
:20,200m300
And so on.
Use Shift+V to go in visual mode, then you can select lines and delete / change them.
My usual method for commenting out 40 lines would be to put the cursor on the first line and enter the command:
:.,+40s/^/# /
(For here thru 40 lines forward, substitute start-of-line with hash, space)
Seems a bit longer than some other methods suggested, but I like to do things with the keyboard instead of the mouse.
First answer is currently not quite right?
To comment out selection press ':' and type command
:'<,'>s/^/# /g
('<, '> - will be there automatically)
You should be aware of the normal mode command [count]CTRL-D.
It optionally changes the 'scroll' option from 10 to [count], and then scrolls down that many lines. Pressing CTRL-D again will scroll down that same lines again.
So try entering
V "visual line selection mode
30 "optionally set scroll value to 30
CTRL-D "jump down a screen, repeated as necessary
y " yank your selection
CTRL-U works the same way but scrolls up.
v enters visual block mode, where you can select as if with shift in most common editors, later you can do anything you can normally do with normal commands (substitution :'<,'>s/^/#/ to prepend with a comment, for instance) where '<,'> means the selected visual block instead of all the text.
marks would be the simplest mb where u want to begin and me where u want to end once this is done you can do pretty much anything you want
:'b,'ed
deletes from marker b to marker e
commenting out 40 lines you can do in the visual mode
V40j:s/^/#/
will comment out 40 lines from where u start the sequence