Is there a shortcut key to copy a line from vi editor and then paste it into a terminal.
Currently I select the text with mouse and then press crtl+shift+c (I'm using default settings of KDE) and then do ctrl+shift+v on the konsole. The problem with this option is when the line is long enough to wrap. In that case copy-paste inserts extra spaces which I have to fix after pasting on terminal.
This is very annoying specially when the line copied is very long and contains file names (typically commands used to invoke compiler).
You can yank to the X clipboard by putting the contents in the * register.
To do this use "*yy on the line you want to yank. Then outside of vim you should be able to paste it.
If you don't have access to a clipboard via X or screen or tmux, you can write the contents of the buffer to a temp file, then go to the terminal and invoke $(cat temp-file) or open an editor for the command line and read in the file. Whatever shell you are using probably provides a mechanism for opening an editor on the command line. In bash with vi-style readline keybindings you can type v to get a vi session. If you shell does not provide that functionality, try a different shell.
Related
I would like to copy the following function and paste it into a shell outside vim:
Once I have selected the text I have tried doing "+y and it yanks the text, and allows me to copy-paste that into another vim editor, but if I try copying it into another terminal shell, it doesn't do anything. Now how I have to do it is use my mouse, remove the line numbers, and highlight those lines 37-42. What would be the proper way to yank/copy the text so I can paste it into other programs. Note that this is on a remote ubuntu server.
Note that outside of vim, I would have to use Cmd p to paste in the text (my local machine is a mac).
I need to document all commands that I used to modify text using Vim editor. When I am in the terminal and need to save all my input in a file I usually write:
history > ~/some_file.txt
However, I am not sure how to do it while using vim. Can you tell me?
Any output can be redirected with :redir. So
redir >~/vim.history|silent history|redir END
Will redirect the output of :history to the file ~/vim.history. Here silent is used to prevent a -- More -- prompt.
You could also put the history into the current buffer with
:put =execute(':history')
Note that Vims history is limited to 50 entries by default (see :help 'history).
Use startup option -w. From the docs:
All the characters that you type are recorded in the file "scriptout", until you exit Vim. This is useful if you want to create a script file to be used with "vim -s" or ":source!".
Press qx, which causes Vim to start recording your keystrokes.
Press q to finish recording.
Move your cursor to wherever you would like Vim to paste the record it has just made.
Press "xp to paste the record.
The x identifies a buffer. Buffers y, z and so on also exist, so you can use a different letter than x if you wish.
Nothing requires you to paste the record into the file you were editing when the record was made, incidentally. To paste into a different file, give the command :tabedit name-of-different-file, press [Enter], and then press "xp to paste. (Since :tabedit opens the second files in another tab, you can then press gt to toggle between the two if you wish.)
I want to select all the text from the vim editor, I tried the command :%y+ but getting error E850: Invalid register name. I get this command from this link. Please help me how to copy all the text from file which is open in vim. They are using yank, what is meaning of it..
I had a similar problem. Don't know why you got so many down votes.
The problem is that you haven't installed vim-gnome which takes about 24 MB and adds a feature to the inbuilt vim.
sudo apt-get install vim-gnome
then your command will work. :%y+ This command will copy all the text in system's clipboard.
TLDR: If you want to copy text in Vim to the system clipboard type ggVG"*y. Explanation below...
Vim runs in the terminal and, depending upon how you are using it and which type of Vim you are running, it's not really designed for you to select text with a mouse and copy and paste in the traditional way.
If you want to select all of the text using Vim then use ggVGy (note the uppercase VG in the middle). This command moves the cursor to the top of the file, enters visual mode, moves to the bottom of the file (thus, selecting all of the text) and then yanks (copies) it. You can then use p to put (paste) this code but only inside of Vim.
If you want to copy to the clipboard to use somewhere outside of Vim then try this:
First, select everything using the commands outlined above but without the final y: (ggVG). Then press "*y. This should now copy it to your operating system's clipboard and you can just paste (Ctrl/Cmd+v) anywhere you want outside of Vim. This can vary depending on what settings you have for Vim but it should work.
A brief explanation of the commands used. gg goes to the top of the file. V enters visual mode by lines. G goes to the end of the file. y yanks (copies) the text but not to the clipboard. p puts (pastes) the text.
The more advanced (i.e. cool) stuff:
" allows you to access registers. For example "a provides access to register a.
The * is the system clipboard so "* provides access to the system keyboard. Therefore, "*y yanks into the system clipboard.
While there's a great explanation of how to exploit the system clipboard in vim, it sounds like you're just having trouble getting your vim to access the clipboard in the first place. Try installing vim-gnome, it gives you the packages you need to get to the system clipboard.
For some reason, "* didn't work for me, but the exact same command with the "+ register did.
To select the whole file you can jump to the beginning, start visual mode, jump to the end:
ggVG
This question is a few years old now, but I had this same problem on Linux Mint 18. I found using xclip worked for me. You can map the command vmap <F7> :!xclip -sel c<CR><CR> in your .vimrc to have your current selection in visual mode copied to the system clipboard.
Here is a thread containing the above (and other) solutions.
You can use
Vggy/vggy or,
VGy/VGy
To visually select any number of text and then copy it, in your case it is gg / G as you want all text on the file,
gg is to copy while your cursor is at bottom of the file, gg for go to top
G is to copy while your cursor is at top of the file
Or even you can always use
Vk(as number of time)y to copy the selected lines of text.
I intend to copy something from vim editor to shell command line. I have tried many ways, but I find all of them only work when in the same vim editor. My need is to copy and paste between vim editor and shell command line. That's, vim -> shell
PS: I am using putty.
EDIT:
BTW, what if just copy something from vim editor and paste it to terminal both in a unix/linux box?
ATTENTION:
output of :echo has("X11") in vim is 0, so my system does not support X11!
If your vim version >= 7.3.74, you can set the vim to use the system clipboard by default by adding a line to your .vimrc:
set clipboard=unnamedplus
for the detail, see this link. Then you use the y(ank) command in vim, the content is in the system clipboard.
EDIT:
this solution and the "*y solution require the Vim that has clipboard support. Since you're lack of that, use cat/grep/less/tail... to extract the text you want to copy.
" + y to yank text in vim, then ctrl + shift + v to paste in the terminal.
from the comments, it seems that your mouse middle button works for * buffer, you can select text in vim, then press: 3 keystrokes:
"*y
and switch to other program, terminal, browser or whatever, click mouse middle to get yanked text.
read :h y for details, how to yank text and save in a specific register (in this case, it is register *)
Using pipe
Select line[s] by using V command then execute this selection by command :'<,'>w !sh
Can one put control characters into a text so that when I copy and paste it in Vim it exits insert mode and does something nasty in command mode?
The short answer seems to be "yes". I was able to put the following in my clipboard:
hello<Escape>:!date<CR>
and when I pasted it into vim while in insert mode hello was typed and then the shell opened up and the date command was run.
Obviously if I can run the date command in the shell I can do much more nasty stuff.
To get that string in my paste buffer I opened vim and typed hello<C-V><Esc>:!date<C-V><Enter>. I then had to save that file, open it with Kate and copy the contents that way (copying from vim didn't preserve the control characters).
That depends on the environment, and the Vim command used.
Graphical GVIM can differentiate pastes from typed keys, but in the terminal, this is not (generally) possible. That's why Vim has the 'paste' and 'pastetoggle' options, to tell Vim what is expected. Despite that, if the character stream contains a key like <Esc> that switches modes, Vim will do so.
Instead of pushing text into Vim, it is safer to pull with Vim's put command: "*p. There, special characters like <Esc> will be inserted literally into the buffer; Vim won't switch modes here. The only Vim command that interprets register contents as typed (and therefore is susceptible to mode switch commands) is i_CTRL-R. To avoid that, one should use any of the other command variants, e.g. i_CTRL-R_CTRL-R.
summary
Pull text into Vim instead of pushing it; if you avoid the i_CTRL-R command (or neuter it by remapping it), this is safe. Additionally, the :registers command allows you to inspect all contents before pasting.