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 ..
Related
Is there a command to delete the current and previous line at the same time in vi? I have tried :-1,d but it won't work.
In normal mode, press d for delete. Then, press k for upward motion. This is a shorthand for d1k. You can increase the count to delete more than the current and previous line. For example, to delete the current line and the previous two lines, type d2k.
In general, most commands take motion and count modifiers. See the following Vim documentation for details:
The motion commands can be used after an operator command, to have the command
operate on the text that was moved over. That is the text between the cursor
position before and after the motion. Operators are generally used to delete
or change text. The following operators are available:
...
If the motion includes a count and the operator also had a count before it,
the two counts are multiplied. For example: "2d3w" deletes six words.
Motions and operators
-2dd
should achieve what you require. This will move up one line and then perform dd on 2 lines.
if you want it as a : command then
.,-1d
works for me
How do you select a single line in VIM, when your cursor as at some random point along that line?
I know you can do (v, $) to get to the end of the line, or (v, ^) to get to the start, but when you do (v,$,^) it logically doesn't select the whole line, it selects from cursor, until end, then switches it to cursor until beginning... So this approach fails of course.
Capital V selects the current line in one key stroke; two, if you include the "shift" in shift+v.
V would be direct answer. However, I rarely need to do this because "selecting the current line" is generally part of a larger task. Example of such tasks includes copying the line and deleting the line. There's generally a better way to accomplish the task as a whole. The following are some of the tasks I can think of:
copy the line: yy
delete the line: dd
indent the line: >> or <<
select the current paragraph: vap or vip
delete from the current line to the end of the file 0dG
highlight the current line to see where my cursor is: use :set cursorline in .vimrc file
One case in which I do use V is to select multiple lines that are not a paragraph or some other text object. In this case, there's a tip that might be useful for you: once in the selection mode, you can use o to jump the cursor between the start and the end of the selection.
While this might be more keystrokes.
If you are already in visual mode you can use o to go to the other end of the visual selection.
So you can type
v0o$
To select the whole line. Take a look at :h visual-change
However from the comments it seems you just want to copy the whole line.
Which would just be yy
Just change your order of operations. You almost have it.
^,v,$
Or as suggested by #Kent: because ^ goes to the first non-empty char, if the line has leading spaces:
0,v,$
I know this thread is super old, but I just had the same question. This thread came up first, but I found a different answer than any found here. Use 'V' to select whole lines. That easy. One character to select the whole current line.
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
.
Say I have the following style of lines in a text file:
"12" "34" "some text "
"56" "78" "some more text"
.
.
.
etc.
I want to be able to remove the quotes surrounding the first two columns. What is the best way to do this with Vim (I'm currently using gVim)?
I figured out how to at least delete the beginning quote of each line by using visual mode and then enter the command '<,'>s!^"!!
I'm wondering if there is a way to select an entire column of text (one character going straight down the file... or more than 1, but in this case I would only want one). If it is possible, then would you be able to apply the x command (delete the character) to the entire column.
There could be better ways to do it. I'm looking for any suggestions.
Update
Just and FYI, I combined a couple of the suggestions. My _vimrc file now has the following line in it:
let #q=':%s/"\([0-9]*\)"/\1/g^M'
(Note: THE ^M is CTRLQ + Enter to emulate pressing the Enter key after running the command)
Now I can use a macro via #q to remove all of the quotes from both number columns in the file.
use visual block commands:
start mode with Ctrl-v
specify a motion, e.g. G (to the end of the file),
or use up / down keys
for the selected block specify an action, e.g. 'd' for delete
For more see
:h visual-mode
Control-V is used for block select. That would let you select things in the same character column.
It seems like you want to remove the quotes around the numbers. For that use,
:%s/"\([0-9]*\)"/\1/g
Here is a list of what patterns you can do with vim.
There is one more (sort of ugly) form that will restrict to 4 replacements per line.
:%s/^\( *\)"\([ 0-9]*\)"\([ 0-9]*\)"\([ 0-9]*\)"/\1\2\3\4/g
And, if you have sed handy, you can try these from the shell too.
head -4 filename.txt | sed 's/pattern/replacement/g'
that will try your command on the first 4 lines of the file.
Say if you want to delete all columns but the first one, the simple and easy way is to input this in Vim:
:%!awk '{print $1}'
Or you want all columns but the first one, you can also do this:
:%!awk '{$1="";$0=$0;$1=$1;print}'
Indeed it requires external tool to accomplish the quest, but awk is installed in Linux and Mac by default, and I think folks with no UNIX-like system experience rarely use Vim in Windows, otherwise you probably known how to get a Windows version of awk.
Although this case was pretty simple to fix with a regex, if you want to do something even a bit more advanced I also recommend recording a macro like Bryan Ward. Also macros come easier to me than remembering which characters need to be escaped in vim's regexes. And macros are nice because you can see your changes take place immediately and work on your line transformation in smaller bits at a time.
So in your case you would have pressed qw to start recording a macro in register w (you can of course use any letter you want). I usually start my macros with a ^ to move to the start of the line so the macro doesn't rely on the location of the cursor. Then you could do a f" to jump to the first ", x to delete it, f" to jump to the next " and x to delete that too. Then q to finish recording.
Instead of making your macro end on the next line I actually as late as today figured out you can just V (visually line select) all lines you want to apply your macro to and execute :normal #w which applies your macro in register w to each visually selected line.
See column editing in vim. It describes column insert, but basically it should work in the same way for removing.
You could also create a macro (q) that deletes the quotes and then drops down to the next line. Then you can run it a bunch of times by telling vi how many times to execute it. So if you store the macro to say the letter m, then you can run 100#m and it will delete the quotes for 100 lines. For some more information on macros:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Macros
The other solutions are good. You can also try...
:1,$s/^"\(\w\+\)"/\1/gc
For more Vim regex help also see http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Search_patterns.
Start visual-block by Ctrl+v.
Jump at the end and select first two columns by pressing: G, EE.
Type: :s/\%V"//g which would result in the following command:
:'<,'>s/\%V"//g
Press Enter and this will remove all " occurrences in the selected block.
See: Applying substitutes to a visual block at Vim Wikia
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