I usually want to replace some content in vim. After copy, I select the content to be replaced, then paste content I copied. But then the content to be replaced will be copied to clipboard, and I can't replace next place.
I hope content in clipboard don't change when I paste on some selected place.
Short answer: "0p (instead of p)
This question sort of has an answer here, but I will add more details.
The :registers, command will show you what the registers are currently storing.
(use :help registers for more information)
Explanation:
Using the double quote (") before a yank or put command tells vim you want to use a specific register. The command "xp (where x is a number (0-9), or a letter (a-z)) says you want to put the data that was stored in register x.
In your case, you want to retrieve from register 0, because that was what you most recently yanked. (Every yank you do automatically fills register 0 with the text, as well as the unnamed register that is used by default with each yank and put)
You could also choose a named register to store your data in. I will choose letter 'h', for example.
To yank: "hy. To put: "hp.
Now if you use the :registers (or :reg) command, you will see that you have text stored in your "h register.
(Here is a question that explains registers very well)
I need this so often, I wrote a plugin to simplify and allow maximum speed: ReplaceWithRegister.
This plugin offers a two-in-one gr command that replaces text covered by a {motion} / text object, entire line(s) or the current selection with the contents of a register; the old text is deleted into the black-hole register, i.e. it's gone. It transparently handles many corner cases and allows for a quick repeat via the standard . command. Should you not like it, its page has links to alternatives.
Related
For example, I have:
rm -f $(NAME).elf $(name).d
where the second 'name' is a typo, and should also be 'NAME'.
So on 'N', I did yw, and then moved to 'n'.
I realised that if I now hit cw to change it, I'll be in insert mode - but I thought ah well, it's only one extra key (ESC) and then I can just p the corrected version in.
But in that case, p did exactly what u would have done, it put 'name' back. I guess because the 'old text' is loaded into the register on change too, which I didn't realise.
Is there a "replace with register" command that can be applied to a word/letter/etc.?
after you yw on NAME and moved to name you can do:
viwp
or golf abit: vep
I need this so often, I wrote a plugin to simplify and allow maximum speed: ReplaceWithRegister.
This plugin offers a two-in-one gr command that replaces text covered by a {motion} / text object, entire line(s) or the current selection with the contents of a register; the old text is deleted into the black-hole register, i.e. it's gone. It transparently handles many corner cases and allows for a quick repeat via the standard . command. Should you not like it, its page has links to alternatives.
Your example
With NAME yanked into the default register, and the cursor on the n, just use gre. gr invokes the command, and e is the motion that covers the entire name to be replaced.
Yet another way:
ciw<Ctrl-r>0
or
ce<Ctrl-r>0
This would allow for repeating with . without the use of any plugin, as you mentioned on the comments that you are currently avoiding them.
You could simply change the case of name with gUiw.
I've only recently learned about use v command to mark a section I want to copy or cut. This is great!
But I'd like to use the v command to make the section I want to replace.
For example:
$another_obj->method_in_obj
$self->method_actually_in_obj
I want to mark "another_obj" and overwrite "self" with "another_obj". Basically I want to tell vim that, I want to take these 4 characters (self) and turn them into these 11 characters (another_obj) and have vim adjust my line accordingly.
So the final should be:
$another_obj->method_in_obj
$another_obj->method_actually_in_obj
Thanks!
#Kent has outlined the basic approach: You yank the source word, then paste over the selected replacement. The downside is that you can do that only once, because that action overrides the original yanked text! To avoid that, you need to specify the black-hole register.
I do this so often, I wrote a plugin to simplify and allow maximum speed: ReplaceWithRegister.
This plugin offers a two-in-one gr command that replaces text covered by a {motion} / text object, entire line(s) or the current selection with the contents of a register; the old text is deleted into the black-hole register, i.e. it's gone. It transparently handles many corner cases and allows for a quick repeat via the standard . command. Should you not like it, its page has links to alternatives.
cursor on [a]nother, pressing yw
then j cursor is on [s]elf, press:vawp
In Vim, let's say I want to replace the contents of one String with the content of another.
Original input
var1 = "January"
var2 = "February"
Desired output
var1 = "January"
var2 = "January"
What I would usually do is:
Move cursor to line 1
y i " (yank inner quotes)
Move cursor to the destination quote in line 2
v i " p (visual select inner quotes, paste)
While this works well, I generally try to avoid visual mode when possible, so I am not completely satisfied with my step 4 (v i " p).
Is there any way to specify a "destination paste area" without using Visual mode? I suspect it might be something chained to g, but I can't think of anything.
There are many ways of doing this however using visual mode is the easiest.
Use the black hole register to delete the content then paste. e.g. "_di"P
Do ci"<c-r>0. <c-r> inserts the contents of a register
Simply paste and then move over a character and delete the old text. e.g pldt"
However visual mode still has my vote. I find that the concerns most people have is that using visual mode + paste is that the default register is swap with the selected text and it doesn't repeat well. Good news everybody! The 0 register always stores the last yank. The bad news is visual mode still doesn't repeat well. Take a look at this vimcast episode, Pasting from Visual mode, for more information. It mentions a few plugin that help with this.
I need this so often, I wrote a plugin to simplify and allow maximum speed: ReplaceWithRegister.
This plugin offers a two-in-one gr command that replaces text covered by a {motion} / text object, entire line(s) or the current selection with the contents of a register; the old text is deleted into the black-hole register, i.e. it's gone. It transparently handles many corner cases and allows for a quick repeat via the standard . command. Should you not like it, its page has links to alternatives.
It's not particularly pretty, but here goes:
Go to line one and yi"
Move to line two
Type "_di"hp
That deletes what's in the quotes, but sends the deleted text to a black hole register. Then it moves the cursor back one, and pastes what you yanked from line one.
All in all, you can start on the first line and type yi"j"_di"hp. Why is it that people find vim intimidating? ;)
Alternatively, yank the first line as normal, then drop to line two and type ci"<Ctrl+p> and select the previously yanked text from the menu.
Excerpt from my .vimrc:
" Delete to 'black hole' register
nnoremap <leader>d "_d
vnoremap <leader>d "_d
So, you just need to \di"P as your last step (assuming you use \ as a <leader>).
There is a plugin that addresses this problem precisely. It was presumably born out of the same feeling you're feeling, namely that Visual mode often feels less than ideal to advanced Vim users.
operator-replace – Operator to replace text with register content
With operator-replace installed the replacing goes like this.
Yank the word inside the quotes.
yi"
Move to the target line
j
Replace inside the quotes with the yanked text. (I've set up gr as the replace operator: :map gr <Plug>(operator-replace). Pick your own mapping.)
gri"
Check it out! This is part of the truly excellent textobj/operator frameworks. I couldn't work without them.
Many times I find that I will will want to yank the content between quotes and paste them inside another set up of quotes. For example, take this code for instance.
var foo = 'bar',
baz = 'buz';
I would normally do a yi' inside of 'bar' to yank the word bar.
How do I replace buz with my yank? I know one option is to do a di'"0P, I just wonder if there is an easier solution I'm overlooking.
With your cursor anywhere on the word buz, vi'p to visually select inside the quotes and then put the contents of the most recent yank.
I need this so often, I wrote a plugin to simplify and allow maximum speed: ReplaceWithRegister.
This plugin offers a two-in-one gr command that replaces text covered by a {motion} / text object, entire line(s) or the current selection with the contents of a register; the old text is deleted into the black-hole register, i.e. it's gone. It transparently handles many corner cases and allows for a quick repeat via the standard . command. Should you not like it, its page has links to alternatives.
also note after you replace the content in visual mode,the content being replaced will now in you register. command :reg will show it.
In your example, command p will paste the buz in the editor.
I only know of one instance using registers is via CtrlR* whereby I paste text from a clipboard.
What are other uses of registers? How to use them?
Everything you know about VI registers (let's focus on vi 7.2) -- share with us.
Registers in Vim let you run actions or commands on text stored within them. To access a register, you type "a before a command, where a is the name of a register. If you want to copy the current line into register k, you can type
"kyy
Or you can append to a register by using a capital letter
"Kyy
You can then move through the document and paste it elsewhere using
"kp
To paste from system clipboard on Linux
"+p
To paste from system clipboard on Windows (or from "mouse highlight" clipboard on Linux)
"*p
To access all currently defined registers type
:reg
I was pleased when I discovered the 0 register. If you yank text without assigning it to a particular register, then it will be assigned to the 0 register, as well as being saved in the default " register. The difference between the 0 and " registers is that 0 is only populated with yanked text, whereas the default register is also populated with text deleted using d/D/x/X/c/C/s/S commands.
I find this useful when I want to copy some text, delete something and replace it with the copied text. The following steps illustrate an example:
Yank the text you want to copy with y[motion] - this text is saved in " and 0 registers
Delete the text you want to replace with d[motion] - this text is saved in " register
Paste the yanked text with "0p
where " is the command to use a register for the next command.
On the final step, if you were to paste from the default register (with p), it would use the text that you had just deleted (probably not what you intended).
Note that p or P pastes from the default register. The longhand equivalent would be ""p (or ""P) and "0 holds the last yank, "1holds the last delete or change.
For more info see :help registers.
One of my favorite parts about registers is using them as macros!
Let's say you are dealing with a tab-delimited value file as such:
ID Df %Dev Lambda
1 0 0.000000 0.313682
2 1 0.023113 0.304332
3 1 0.044869 0.295261
4 1 0.065347 0.286460
5 1 0.084623 0.277922
6 1 0.102767 0.269638
7 1 0.119845 0.261601
Now you decide that you need to add a percentage sign at the end of the %Dev field (starting from 2nd line). We'll make a simple macro in the (arbitrarily selected) m register as follows:
Press: qm: To start recording macro under m register.
EE: Go to the end of the 3rd column.
a: Insert mode to append to the end of this column.
%: Type the percent sign we want to add.
<ESC>: Get back into command mode.
j0: Go to beginning of next line.
q: Stop recording macro
We can now just type #m to run this macro on the current line. Furthermore, we can type ## to repeat, or 100#m to do this 100 times! Life's looking pretty good.
At this point you should be saying, "But what does this have to do with registers?"
Excellent point. Let's investigate what is in the contents of the m register by typing "mp. We then get the following:
EEa%<ESC>j0
At first this looks like you accidentally opened a binary file in notepad, but upon second glance, it's the exact sequence of characters in our macro!
You are a curious person, so let's do something interesting and edit this line of text to insert a ! instead of boring old %.
EEa!<ESC>j0
Then let's yank this into the n register by typing B"nyE. Then, just for kicks, let's run the n macro on a line of our data using #n....
It added a !.
Essentially, running a macro is like pressing the exact sequence of keys in that macro's register. If that isn't a cool register trick, I'll eat my hat.
Other useful registers:
"* or "+ - the contents of the system clipboard
"/ - last search command
": - last command-line command.
Note with vim macros, you can edit them, since they are just a list of the keystrokes used when recording the macro. So you can write to a text file the macro (using "ap to write macro a) and edit them, and load them into a register with "ay$. Nice way of storing useful macros.
The black hole register _ is the /dev/null of registers.
I use it in my vimrc to allow deleting single characters without updating the default register:
noremap x "_x
and to paste in visual mode without updating the default register:
vnoremap p "_dP
If you ever want to paste the contents of the register in an ex-mode command, hit <C-r><registerletter>.
Why would you use this? I wanted to do a search and replace for a longish string, so I selected it in visual mode, started typing out the search/replace expression :%s/[PASTE YANKED PHRASE]//g and went on my day.
If you only want to paste a single word in ex mode, can make sure the cursor is on it before entering ex mode, and then hit <C-r><C-w> when in ex mode to paste the word.
To make it more convenient :
cnoremap <c-g> <c-r>"
cnoremap <C-Right> <c-r><c-w>
A cool trick is to use "1p to paste the last delete/change (, and then use . to repeatedly to paste the subsequent deletes. In other words, "1p... is basically equivalent to "1p"2p"3p"4p.
You can use this to reverse-order a handful of lines:
dddddddddd"1p....
I think the secret guru register is the expression = register. It can be used for creative mappings.
:inoremap \d The current date <c-r>=system("date")<cr>
You can use it in conjunction with your system as above or get responses from custom VimL functions etc.
or just ad hoc stuff like
<c-r>=35+7<cr>
q5 records edits into register 5 (next q stops recording)
:reg show all registers and any contents in them
#5 execute register 5 macro (recorded edits)
From vim's help page:
CTRL-R {0-9a-z"%#:-=.} *c_CTRL-R* *c_<C-R>*
Insert the contents of a numbered or named register. Between
typing CTRL-R and the second character '"' will be displayed
<...snip...>
Special registers:
'"' the unnamed register, containing the text of
the last delete or yank
'%' the current file name
'#' the alternate file name
'*' the clipboard contents (X11: primary selection)
'+' the clipboard contents
'/' the last search pattern
':' the last command-line
'-' the last small (less than a line) delete
'.' the last inserted text
*c_CTRL-R_=*
'=' the expression register: you are prompted to
enter an expression (see |expression|)
(doesn't work at the expression prompt; some
things such as changing the buffer or current
window are not allowed to avoid side effects)
When the result is a |List| the items are used
as lines. They can have line breaks inside
too.
When the result is a Float it's automatically
converted to a String.
See |registers| about registers. {not in Vi}
<...snip...>
I use the default register to grep for text in my vim window without having to reach for the mouse.
yank text
:!grep "<CTRL-R>0"<CR>
Use registers in commands with #. E.g.:
echo #a
echo #0
echo #+
Set them in command:
let #a = 'abc'
Now "ap will paste abc.
One overlooked register is the '.' dot register which contains the last inserted text no matter how it was inserted eg ct] (change till ]). Then you realise you need to insert it elsewhere but can't use the dot repeat method.
:reg .
:%s/fred/<C-R>./
A big source of confusion is the default register ". It is important to know the way it works. It is much better if the default register is avoided most of the times. The explanation from the Vim documentation:
Vim fills this register with text deleted with the "d", "c", "s", "x" commands
or copied with the yank "y" command, regardless of whether or not a specific
register was used (e.g. "xdd). This is like the unnamed register is pointing
to the last used register.
So the default register is actually a pointer to the last used register. When you delete, or yank something this register is going to point to other registers. You can test that by checking the registers. There is always another register that is exactly the same as the default register: the yank register ("0) , the first delete register("1) , small delete register("-) or any other register that was used to delete or yank.
The only exception is the black hole register. Vim doc says:
An exception is the '_' register: "_dd does not store the deleted text in any
register.
Usually you are much better off by using directly: "0, "- and "1-"9 default registers or named registers.
My favorite register is the ':' register. Running #: in Normal mode allows me to repeat the previously ran ex command.
So we can verify some commands in with :MY_commandXXXXX then put MY_commandXXXXX in vimrc
My friend Brian wrote a comprehensive article on this. I think it is a great intro to how to use topics. https://www.brianstorti.com/vim-registers/
My favorite feature is the ability to append into registers by using capital letters. For example, say you want to move a subset of imports from buffer X to buffer Y.
Go to line x1 in buffer X.
Type "ayy to replace register a with the content of line x1.
Go to line x5.
Type "Ayy (capital A) to append line x5 at the end of register a.
Go to buffer Y and type "ap to paste
<content of line x1>
<content of line x5>