I would like to replace parts of one line with the result of the selection being piped into a command.
For example:
echo "hello $(echo "world" | base64)" | vim -
This will open a buffer with hello d29ybGQK in it. Now press wvw to visually select d29ybGQK.
Then I attempted :!base64 -d and I expected the buffer to contain hello world, which did not happen. Indeed, the whole line was piped into the command, and the whole line was replaced.
Is it possible to replace only the visual selection, and have only that selection piped into the command?
I also attempted c<c-r>=system('base64 -d') but that did not send the visual selection to the command's stdin.
Filtering with ! is always line-wise. Your solution with c and the
expression register is an excellent way to solve this. You only forgot
to pass the input to system(), which is its second optional argument.
Since you just changed the text selected, it went into the " register
automatically. All you need to do is to grab it back and pass it to
system with getreg():
c<C-R>=system('base64 -D', getreg('"'))
Note that base64 may echo a newline at the end. If you want to remove
it, either wrap the whole thing in trim(), a new function in Vim 8, or
use [:-2]:
c<C-R>=trim(system('base64 -D', getreg('"')))
c<C-R>=system('base64 -D', getreg('"'))[:-2]
This is a shorthand for [0:-2], meaning grab everything from character
0 to second-last in the resulting string.
Consider creating a visual map if you use it often:
vnoremap <leader>d c<C-R>=system('base64 -D', getreg('"'))[:-2]<CR>
For historical reasons, the Ex commands are inherently line-based; venerable vi also didn't have visual mode yet. That limitation includes filtering through an external command with :range!; it will always filter complete lines.
manual solution
For simple input like in your example, it's probably easiest to temporarily split the line, filter, and then reassemble. For example:
:substitute/ /\r/ | execute '.!base64 -d' | -1join
plugin solution
For a universal solution, you need to use or implement a plugin that grabs the selected text, filters it (probably through system()), and then replaces the selection with the result.
My SubstituteExpression plugin has a {Visual}g= mapping that can filter through Vimscript expressions, Vim functions and commands, and external commands.
express.vim by Tom McDonald offers an almost identical implementation. It also allows on-the-fly creation of operators via :MapExpress and :MapSubpress, something for which I would use my TextTransform plugin, which you need to install as a dependency, anyway. My plugin offers more advanced (cross-mode) repeats, and the :Ex-command expression variant, but has two large dependencies you also need to install.
As part of a project of mine I'm trying to move certain lines from a file to the top, sorted in a certain fashion. I'm not sure how to do the sort once those lines are up there - I don't want to disturb the other lines in the file.
I'm moving them by yanking them and putting them back down, like so:
g:/pattern/yank A
g:/pattern/d
0put A
This moves all the lines I specify up to the top of the file like I need, but now I need to sort them according to a pattern, like so:
[range]sort r /pattern2/
Is there a way to sort the contents of a register before pasting it? Or a way to sort only lines which match /pattern/? (because all the yanked lines will, of course).
I'm stymied and help would be appreciated.
edit - a possible workaround might be to count the number of lines before they're yanked, and then use that to select and sort those lines once they're placed again. I'm not sure how to count those lines - I can print the number of lines that match a pattern with the command :%s/pattern//n but I can't do anything with that number, or use that in a function.
The whole point of :g/pattern/cmd is to execute cmd on every line matching pattern. cmd can, of course, be :sort.
In the same way you did:
:g/pattern/yank A
to append every line matching pattern to register a and:
:g/pattern/d
to cut every line matching pattern, you can do:
:g/pattern/sort r /pattern2/
to sort every line matching pattern on pattern2.
Your example is wasteful anyway. Instead of abusing registers with three commands you could simply do:
:g/pattern/m0
to move every line matching pattern to the top of the buffer before sorting them with:
:g//sort r /pattern2/
See :help :global, :help :sort, :help :move.
I know this is old, and may not be of any use to you anymore, but I just figured this one out today. It relies on the system's sort command (not vim's). Assuming you're saving to register A:
qaq
:g/pattern/yank A
<C-O>
:put=system('sort --stable --key=2,3',#A)
qaq: clears register A of anything
:g/pattern/yank A: searches current buffer for pattern and copies it to register A
<C-O>: pressing Ctrl+O in normal mode returns you to the last place your cursor was
:put=system('sort --stable --key=2,3',#A): sends the contents of register A to the sort command's STDIN and pastes the output to the current position of the cursor.
I mapped this whole thing to <F8>:
noremap <F8> qaq:g/pattern/yank A<CR><C-O>:put=system('sort --stable --key=2,3',#A)<CR>
I don't know how janky this is considered, cuz I'm a complete noob to vim. I spent hours today trying to figure this out. It works for me and I'm happy with it, hopefully it'll help someone else too.
I had a situation where I wanted to replace FOO with BAR through out a file. However, I only want to do it in certain places, say, between lines 68–104, 500–537, and 1044–1195. In practice, I dropped markers at the lines of interest (via ma, mb, mc, etc.) and ran the following:
:'a,'b s/FOO/BAR/g | 'c,'d s/FOO/BAR/g | 'e,'f s/FOO/BAR/g
I had to repeat this dozens of times with different search and replace terms s/CAT/DOG, etc., and it became a pain to have to rewrite the command line each time. I was lucky in that I had only three places that I needed to confine my search to (imagine how messy the command line would get if there were 30 or 40).
Short of writing a function, is there any neater way of doing this?
On a related note. I copied FOO to the s (search) register, and BAR to the r (replace) and tried running
:'a,'b s/\=#s/\=#r/ | 'c,'d s/\=#s/\=#r/ | 'e,'f s/\=#s/\=#r/
This would have saved me having to rewrite the command line each time, but, alas, it didn’t work. The replace bit \=#r was fine, but the \=#s bit in the search pattern gave me an error.
Any tips would be appreciated.
If you need to perform a set of line-wise operations (like substitutions) on a bunch of different ranges of lines, one trick you can use is to make those lines look different by first adding a prefix (that isn't shared by any of the other lines).
The way I usually do this is to indent the entire file with something like >G performed on the first line, and then use either :s/^ /X/ commands or block-visual to replace the leading spaces with X on the lines I want.
Then use :g in conjunction with :s. eg:
:%g/^X/s/FOO/BAR/g
:%g/^X/s/BAZ/QUUX/g
Finally, remove the temporary prefixes.
In order to get rid of the necessity to retype the same search
pattern, substitution string and flags, one can simply use the
:& command with the & flag:
:'a,'bs/pat/str/g | 'c,'d&& | 'e,'f&&
(See :help :& for details.)
Instead of using marker use this one :
:68,104s/FOO/BAR/g << substitue from line 68 to 104
This should make your job a little bit easier and clearer.
inspired by #Vdt's answer:
I am not sure but you could write all the substitutions down in a file and source that file i think.
substitutions.vim:
68,104s/FOO/BAR/g
168,204s/FOO/BAR/g
618,644s/FOO/BAR/g
681,1014s/FOO/BAR/g
.
.
.
68,104s/BAZ/BOOO/g
168,204s/BAZ/BOOO/g
and then :so substitutions.vim maybe you can also use this for multiple files of same structure. you can add an e to add an ignore error message, if it is not clear that the substitutions are found on the corresponding line blocks.
With q:, you can recall previous command lines and edit them as a normal Vim buffer, so you can quickly replace FOO and BAR with something else, then re-execute the line with Enter.
The s/\=#s/\=#r/ doesn't work; as you said, this only works in the replacement part. But for the pattern, you can use Ctrl + R Ctrl + R s to insert the contents of register s, instead of \=#s. Preferably use the default register, then it's a simple s//, but you probably know that already.
When performed over a closed fold, substitutions are limited to that fold.
fold each region
put the cursor on one closed fold
perform the substitution: :s/foo/bar<CR>
move to the next closed fold with zj or zk
use the command-line history: :<C-p><CR> or :<Up><CR> to perform the same substitution
repeat…
You can also add the c flag at the end of your substitution so that Vim asks you for a confirmation before actually performing it. This can be tedious if you have lot of matches.
Here's the simplest way to do it
:5,10s/old/new/g
5,10 : startlinenum,endlinenum
I have this dataset in a csv file
1.33570301776, 3.61194e-06, 7.24503e-06, -9.91572e-06, 1.25098e-05, 0.0102828, 0.010352, 0.0102677, 0.0103789, 0.00161604, 0.00167978, 0.00159998, 0.00182596, 0.0019804, 0.0133687, 0.010329, 0.00163437, 0.00191202, 0.0134425
1.34538754675, 3.3689e-06, 9.86066e-06, -9.12075e-06, 1.18058e-05, 0.00334344, 0.00342207, 0.00332897, 0.00345504, 0.00165532, 0.00170412, 0.00164234, 0.00441903, 0.00459294, 0.00449357, 0.00339737, 0.00166596, 0.00451926, 0.00455153
1.34808186291, -1.99011e-06, 6.53026e-06, -1.18909e-05, 9.52337e-06, 0.00158065, 0.00166529, 0.0015657, 0.0017022, 0.000740644, 0.00078635, 0.000730052, 0.00219736, 0.00238191, 0.00212762, 0.00163783, 0.000750669, 0.00230171, 0.00217917
As you can see, the numbers are formatted differently and misaligned. Is there a way in vim to quickly align the columns properly, so that the result is this
1.33570301776, 3.61194e-06, 7.24503e-06, -9.91572e-06, 1.25098e-05, 0.0102828, 0.010352, 0.0102677, 0.0103789, 0.00161604, 0.00167978, 0.00159998, 0.00182596, 0.0019804, 0.0133687, 0.010329, 0.00163437, 0.00191202, 0.0134425
1.34538754675, 3.3689e-06, 9.86066e-06, -9.12075e-06, 1.18058e-05, 0.00334344, 0.00342207, 0.00332897, 0.00345504,0.00165532, 0.00170412, 0.00164234, 0.00441903, 0.00459294, 0.00449357, 0.00339737, 0.00166596, 0.00451926, 0.00455153
1.34808186291, -1.99011e-06, 6.53026e-06, -1.18909e-05, 9.52337e-06, 0.00158065, 0.00166529, 0.0015657, 0.0017022, 0.000740644,0.00078635, 0.000730052,0.00219736, 0.00238191, 0.00212762, 0.00163783, 0.000750669,0.00230171, 0.00217917
That would be great to copy and paste sections with ctrl-v. Any hints?
If you're on some kind of UNIX (Linux, etc), you can cheat and filter it through the column(1) command.
:%!column -t
The above will parse on delimiters inside string literals which is wrong, so you will likely need pre-processing steps and specifying the delimiter for this file for example:
%!sed 's/","/\&/' | column -t -s '&'
Sometimes we want to align just two columns. In that case, we don't need any plugins and can use pure Vim functionality like this:
Choose a separator. In OP's post this is a comma, in my example this is =.
Add spaces before/after it. I use s/=/= ...spaces... / in visual selection for this.
Locate to the longest word and place cursor after it.
Remove all the extra whitespace using dw and vertical movement.
Example of this technique demonstrated below:
I don't find myself needing to align things often enough to install another plugin, so this was my preferred way of accomplishing it - especially that it doesn't require much thinking.
As sunny256 suggested, the column command is a great way of doing this on Unix/Linux machines, but if you want to do it in pure Vim (so that it can be used in Windows as well), the easiest way is to install the Align plugin and then do:
:%Align ,
:%s/\(\s\+\),\s/,\1/g
The first line aligns the entries on the commas and the second moves the comma so that it's flush with the preceding value. You may be able to use AlignCtrl to define a custom mapping that does the whole lot in one go, but I can never remember how to use it...
Edit
If you don't mind two spaces between entries and you want to do this in one command, you can also do:
:%Align ,\zs
This is a great answer using vim macros: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8363786/59384 - basically, you start recording a macro, format the first column, stop recording then repeat the macro for all remaining lines.
Copy/pasted from that answer:
qa0f:w100i <Esc>19|dwjq4#a
Note the single space after the 100i, and the <Esc> means "press escape"--don't type "<Esc>" literally.
Translation:
qa -- record macro in hotkey a
0 -- go to beginning of line
f: -- go to first : symbol
w -- go to next non-space character after the symbol
100i <Esc> -- insert 100 spaces
19| -- go to 19th column (value 19 figured out manually)
dw -- delete spaces until : symbol
j -- go to next line
q -- stop recording macro
4#a -- run the macro 4 times (for the remaining 4 lines)
We now also have the fabulous EasyAlign plugin, written by junegunn.
Demonstration GIF from its README:
Also, Tabularize is quite good http://vimcasts.org/episodes/aligning-text-with-tabular-vim/
You could use the csv.vim plugin.
:%ArrangeColumn
However, this will not do exactly what you have asked: it will right adjust the contents of cells, whereas you have your values aligned by the decimal point or by the first digit.
The plugin has many other useful commands for working with CSV files.
also if you have very long columns it can be handy to disable default wrapping
:set nowrap
:%!column -t
(note in debian you also have a further option for column -n which if you want to split multiple adjacent delimiters)
Here’s a pure Vim script answer, no plugins, no macros:
It might be most clear to start out with my problem’s solution as an example. I selected the lines of code I wanted to affect, then used the following command (recall that entering command mode from visual mode automatically prepends the “'<,'>”, so it acts on the visual range):
:'<,'>g``normal / "value<0d>D70|P`
Except I did NOT actually type “<0d>”. You can enter unprintable characters on the command line by pressing ctrl-v, then the key you want to type. “<0d>” is what is rendered on the command line after I typed ‘ctrl-v enter’. Here, it’s parsed by the “normal” command as the exit from “/” search mode. The cursor then jumps to “ value” in the current line.
Then we simply [D]elete the rest of the line, jump to column 70 (or whatever you need in your case), and [P]ut what we just deleted. This does mean we have to determine the width of the widest line, up to our search. If you haven’t put that information in your statusline, you can see the column of the cursor by entering the normal mode command ‘g ctrl-g’. Also note that jumping to a column that doesn’t exist requires the setting 'virtualedit'!
I left the search term for the :g(lobal) command empty, since we used a visual block and wanted to affect every line, but you can leave off using a visual selection (and the “'<,'>”) and put a search term there instead. Or combine a visual selection and a search term to narrow things more finely/easily.
Here’s something I learned recently: if you mess up on a complex command mode command, undo with ‘u’ (if it affected the buffer), then press “q:” to enter a special command history buffer that acts much like a conventional buffer. Edit any line and press enter, and the changed command is entered as a new command. Indispensable if you don’t want to have to stress over formulating everything perfectly the first time.
I just wrote tablign for this purpose. Install with
pip3 install tablign --user
Then simply mark the table in vim and do
:'<,'>:!tablign
Pretty old question, but I've recently availed myself of an excellent vim plugin that enables table formatting either on the fly or after-the-fact (as your use case requires):
https://github.com/dhruvasagar/vim-table-mode
I have this in my .vimrc.
command! CSV set nowrap | %s/,/,|/g | %!column -n -t -s "|"
This aligns the columns while keeping the comma, which may be needed later for correct reading. For example, with Python Pandas read_csv(..., skipinitialspace=True), thanks Pandas guys for this smart option, otherwise in vim %s/,\s\+/,/g. It may be easier if your column has the option --output-separator I guess, my doesn't and I'm not sure why (my man page for column says 2004, on ubuntu 18.04, not sure ubuntu will get a new version). Anyway, this works for me, and comment if you have any suggestions.
I made a cli tool written in Perl.
You can find it here: https://github.com/bas080/colcise