In vim (in Insert mode, after running exuberant ctags), I am using ctrl-x followed by ctrl-] to bring up a dropdown of various possible words/tokens. It's a great feature.
The problem is that by default, this list starts with a bunch of numeric options and automatically inserts the first numeric option, and if I backspace to get rid of the numbers and start typing a part of a word fresh -- with the idea of searching from the middle of the word -- the autocompletion behavior exits entirely.
I know I could type the first letter of the word that I want, then go from there. But that assumes that I know the first letter of the word, which is not necessarily a given.
For example, if I'm working on a pair-programming project with a friend during a long weekend, I might not remember at any given moment whether he called his method promoteRecordStatus(), updateRecordStatus() or boostRecordStatus(). In this example, I would like to type RecordStatus and get the relevant result, which does not seem to be possible at a glance with the current behavior.
So with that scenario in mind: Is there a simple, vim-native way to tell the editor to start its autocompletion without any assumptions, then search all available tokens for my typed string in all parts of each token?
I will of course consider plugin suggestions helpful, but I would prefer a short, vim-native answer that doesn't require any plugins if possible. Ideally, the configuration could be set using just a line or two.
The built-in completions all require a match at the starting position. In some cases, you could drop separator characters from the 'iskeyword' option (e.g. in Vimscript, drop # to be able to complete individual components from foo#bar#BazFunction()), but this won't work for camelCaseWords at all.
Custom :help complete-functions can implement any completion search, though. To be based on the tags database, it would have to use taglist() as a source, and filter according to the completion base entered before triggering the completion. If you do not anchor this pattern match at the beginning, you have your desired completion.
Related
Is there any way to change the word boundary in IntelliJ so that when I use the "move caret to next word" command, punctuation is ignored? (ie brackets periods quotations etc. etc.) Every time I look this up all I seem to find is tutorials on how to write Regex. Which I can see why that would be useful here, but where do I actually change the regex that defines word boundary?
Example, step by step:
current functionality:
|foo.bar
foo|.bar
foo.|bar
foo.bar|
desired functionality:
|foo.bar
foo.|bar
foo.bar|
To the best of my knowledge, there is no setting to modify this behavior. A search of the IntelliJ IDEA source code,as detailed below, seems to confirm this. To get the behavior you desire, you'll need to either open a feature request, or write a plug-in to do it.
From the Source Code:
The "Move Caret to the next word" action is done via the NextWordAction class.That action uses the NextPrevWordHandler to do the work. NextPrevWordHandler only has three boolean options:
next
withSelection
inDifferentHumpMode
These booleans are set in different permutations for the various actions that use this handler:
NextWordAction
NextWordInDifferentHumpsModeAction
NextWordInDifferentHumpsModeWithSelectionAction
NextWordWithSelectionAction
PreviousWordAction
PreviousWordInDifferentHumpsModeAction
PreviousWordInDifferentHumpsModeWithSelectionAction
PreviousWordWithSelectionAction
The NextPrevWordHandler in turn calls EditorActionUtil.moveCaretToNextWord(...). Likewise, it does not take, or reference, any sort of word boundary setting. Thus there does not appear to be a way to modify the behavior to do what you desire.
I've searched the manual, but really have no idea what I'm looking for. Here's a screenshot of what happens when I'm typing a word and press CTRL+N to autocomplete it:
I obviously do not want to autocomplete the word I just typed as it's already typed, therefore don't need it to show in the results dropdown.
It doesn't show up every time I use CTRL+N, which is odd.
The controlN autocompletes with words starting
with the keyword at your curson position, starting the search forward
(think of N as "next). And in your case, you do have a word
right on the same line that is requiredF, which was found by the auto
complete.
If your desired keyword is before your cursor, you can use the
similar command controlP which does the search
backwards, thus searching for the previous possible completion. This
is the most common command you will use when you're writing new text,
for example.
I am using vim to edit structured text files.
Sometimes I use search-and-replace feature, and sometimes I am better off with search, followed with a macro, in which case I have several macros at hand, and the choice of one depends upon the particular search result.
In both cases, though I have to spend some effort to arrive at an acceptable regex to satisfy my editing needs. As the regexs are often very long and sophisticated, I end up with both command-line history and search history full of my trial-and-error by-products. The correct regex is not always the last one in a series of attempts, so if I want to reuse the hard-earned regex in a similar editing situation, I have to dig through the pile again.
In search-and-replace scenario I have quickly fixed this with comments that I now put in place at the end of a would-be reusable search-and-replace command string, for example:
:%s/very_long_and_sophisticated_regex/another_long_and_sophisticated_regex/gc "comments on what this search and replace command does and how it might be reused
This way I can easily ignore the piles of stuff in my command line history and quickly find relevant re-use candidates, they are shown in different color. The commands are reusable right away, comments are ignored.
Not so with the search history, though.
Having rtfmed and searched the web, I have not found anything similar. At the moment I put quasi-comments using XXX at the end of reusable search strings, for example:
/search_string_containing_very_long_and_sophisticated_regex XXX comments on what it finds and how it might be re-used
This way I can at least find the right string for re-use, but I have to first delete 'XXX' and the comments.
I wonder if there is a more elegant way of commenting the search strings in search history, similar to command-line history.
You used the word "elegant" in your title, and that I don't have on offer. If instead you can also accept a quirky workaround that relies on Vim internals, here's one.
To restate your problem, it is possible to add comments after Ex :commands,
:AComplicatedExCommand -42 -quux " this fizzes the brobble
:HardToRememberCommand test.txt " use this to brew the framble
but the same is not possible for complicated search /queries (or ?queries).
I've just discovered that you can trick Vim by terminating your search query with a literal null byte:
/[Complicated]*regexp/^# this regexp finds all scrobbles
/another\+Rege\x*p/^# use this to search foo bars
The ^# here is a literal NUL. You can enter it by pressing CtrlV and then 000.
Vim will ignore everything after the null byte, but it'll still show the whole line in the search history, including the "comment".
You can add a regexp branch that never matches, e.g. /\%$indicator\|search string
\%$ is a special Vim atom matching the end of the file. Since that will never match when followed by the indicator text, the first branch (up to \|) will never match and therefore can represent your indicator.
I've created the TaggedSearchPattern plugin to make adding the tag and recalling it even easier.
When I'm using Autocompletion in Vim, it doesn't just show the words, it shows information to the right of it:
For me it's not important where the matches are coming from (in this case, it's the path to the dictionary file). As you can see, the paths form a block of text that really distracts from the matches...Is there a way to just show the matching words?
I'm using Vim's builtin complete features, no YCM/neocomplcache/...
I'm not aware of any way to turn that off, other than completely turning off the completion popup menu with :set completeopt-=menu; this will insert one candidate after the other on <C-N>, so you're losing the overview altogether.
When you're writing a custom completion (see :help complete-functions), you can influence / suppress the additional information; it's the menu attribute of the returned match objects. So you could in theory re-implement the dictionary completion in Vimscript, but I'd advise against that, because it will be cumbersome and probably also much slower.
So, unless you have a lot of energy to write and submit a patch (e.g. a new option to turn that off, or restrict to a certain length), it's best to accept this as a fact and learn to focus on the first column.
How can I bring back the last string I used for a search or a search&replace?
For example, assume that I enter :%s/some_text/some_other_text/gc and vim gives me the E486: Patterns not found: some_text error message back. I then realize that I actually meant to write some_magic_text instead of some_text. At that point, how can I get back my original string in the bottom command row (or whatever it is called) so I can change it and do a second search? Is there a nifty little command for that?
In this brief example it looks unnecessary, but when the text you are looking to replace is mighty long and you just typed one letter wrong, it is fantastically annoying to have to retype everything.
And I am using MacVim if that makes any difference.
From the normal mode, hit q/ to navigate through your search history!
Check out this vimvcast which explains what you want.
More generally, you can recall any command you have previously typed by entering the first few characters, and then use arrow multiple times to navigate in history.
In your case, you could type:
:%s<Up>
See :help history
This answer might be good an improvement to what you are after, after all.
Use search with highlighting, to interactively check if the regex you are crafting is definitely working, and then use it in a search-replace.
:se is (incsearch, better put se is in your .vimrc)
/<search term>
check with n/N if you are happy with the matches
:s%//<replace term>/g
When omitting the <search term> in the search-replace in 4., the last used search will be used.
For acessing the list of last (search-replace) commands use q:, or as already noted q/ for the list of last search terms.
Bonus:
When using :se gd, s/<search>/<replace> will behave as s/<search>/<replace>/g.
Accessing just the first search match in each line can then still be done with adding /g, so essentially both behaviours are just switched.
/ and then up to bring up the last search query.