Suppose I have the following (* = cursor):
...
*
Kittens
Puppies
Humans
...
How do I yank the "Humans" (cursor relative 3rd line) while leaving the cursor in place?
Preferably in one motion or one (generic) command.
Try this:
:+3y
It uses the range +3 , that it is the point where it will begin to yank. and by default it does one line.
UPDATE: If you wanted to copy both the second and third line without moving cursor, you would use same command but with a range of two points, like:
:+2,+3y
It would copy both Puppies and Humans.
Now, for those who are wondering, based on Birei's answer, you can also do :ny, where n is the line number you want to yank. This is actually what I was looking for when I came to this page, and is helpful if you've got set number on and don't want to count relative lines.
Now, I wonder, how to perform this yank to a particular register! :D
My LineJuggler plugin combines yanks and puts into various short mappings; e.g. with 3[f you can fetch a line 3 lines below the current line and put it below the current line.
Related
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.
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.
I'm trying to add the contents of the general buffer to the end of every line. I'm sure this is fairly simple, however, an hour of google searches have lead me nowhere.
This is what my file looks like
::Things to bring camping
--matches
--tent
--sleeping bags
--inflatable bed
--firewood
--camping stove
--skillet
I want to add "::Things to bring camping" to the end of every line.
This is i have figured out so far.
/:: -> brings me to the line in question
Y -> yanks the entire line to the general buffer
I tried :%s/$/\p -> this added a "p" to the end of every line.
My problem is with step 3. How do I tell the "search and replace command" to used the "p" (the contents of the general buffer) instead of the "p" the character
Thank you so much for your help.
Just a suggestion: If you try doing it with a macro, you will be able to use 'p' to add the contents of the general buffer.
Sorry, I had to go into vim and find out.
The way to copy your entire line while in command mode, is:
^r "
(that's CTRL and r, then " )
That should paste the entire line you yanked into your search and replace command
For step three, instead of \p, you should use ctrl-R-a. Hold down the control key and type an uppercase "R", continue holding control, and type a lowercase "a".
For a line with multiple words, use ctrl-R-" instead.
I agree with using a macro - they're very powerful.
In this case I took your list example and positioned it at the first colon.
I used y$ to grab the remainder of the line in the buffer.
Then I recorded the macro - I chose 1.
q1
j$pq
Then you can call it for any number of rows in your list. E.g. 10#1
Learned something figuring this one out ...
:%s/$/\=getreg()/
The \= says that what follows is an expression to be evaluated, and the getreg() call gets the contents of the register, by default the "general buffer" as it used to be called by vi.
Is there a way to move the cursor a relative amount of lines in vi/vim? Say you have the cursor 10 lines under a block of code you want to remove. If you have the line numbers shown in relative order, it would be nice to have a "jump 10 lines up command" that would take you there.
Or perhaps it's better to have the absolute line numbers shown and go xgg where x is the line number?
Yep, of course there's a way. j and k move down and up one line, so 10j and 10k move down and up ten lines. You can repeat any motion by putting a number before it.
You might also want to set relativenumber if this is something you do a lot of - it'll help save you counting by printing line numbers relative to the current line, instead of absolute numbers.
Moving 10 lines up and down might not suit your task as well as other options. Consider other movements:
Ctrlf, Ctrlb page forward and back.
}, { move forward and back by one paragraph.
You can write rules in your vimrc to bind 10j to a key, say J to move down 10 lines by adding the following line to your vimrc file:
map <S-j> 10j
However you'd be overwriting the useful existing J command (join two lines). Finding a well positioned unused key combination for 10j/10k might be difficult, so I suggest using the existing movements that I mentioned.
You may also want to know that you can move backwards to a word that you see by doing:
?someword and forward to a word you see by doing /someword. These are going to be faster than trying to move up/down 10 lines and then repositioning your cursor to the exact location. If you cant think of a simple search string for the line in question, you can always go to the line number as you said (xgg).
I was messing with vim and I noticed - moves you up and + moves you down, so you can:
10-
or you could use k since you're most likely used to hjkl cursor movement.
I'm a C# developer who has just recently decided to expand my knowledge of the tools available to me. The first tool I've decided to learn is Vi/Vim. Everything has been going well so far, but there are a couple of questions I can't seem to find the answer to:
Lets say I wanted to yank a range of lines. I know there are many ways of doing so, but I would like to do it by line number. I figured it would be similar to how the substitute commands work, something like 81,91y. Is there a way to do this?
I'm a little confused about the g command in normal mode. It seems to do a myriad of things and I can't really determine what the g command does at its core. I'm confused on whether or not it's a motion command or a kind of "catch all" for other commands ran through normal mode. Can someone please explain this or point me to a reference that gives a good explanation of the g command?
Yank lines 81-91
:81,91y<enter>
If your fingers don't like to find the : and , keys, this would work as well (go to line 81, yank 11 lines)
81gg11yy
My only use of g is 5gg. To go to the 5th line. 22gg: 22nd line. As jimbo said, it's really only a modifier for some other commands.
For completeness, (http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Power_of_g) explains a lot of how g works in command mode.
You can also copy the current lines to your present cursor location using 't'.
:81,91t.<enter>
This will paste the lines 81-91 under the line the cursor is on.
I learned this from http://vimcasts.org which is an excellent resource on VIM.
I also like to use vim's relative line number option which means I can just enter:
:-10,-7ya a
to yank the text into named buffer a.
N.B. Specifying A will append what you're yanking to the current contents of buffer a.
Don't forget you can also copy blocks of text and move blocks of text around as well with the similar commands:
:-10,-7co .
means copy the four lines of text 10 lines above to below the current line, and
:-10,-7mo .
means move the four lines of text 10 lines above to below the current line.
The G command goes to a certain line number, if it's accompanied by a count value. 81G puts you on line 81.
The y command can be combined with a movement, like G. So to yank everything until line 91 you can use y91G.
Together you get:
81Gy91G
Go to line 81, then yank while going to line 91.
g doesn't do anything by itself. It's one of a couple meta-commands that holds a bunch of sorta-unrelated commands.
z is yet another command like that.
In addition to :91,96y a which yanks (y) lines 91 through 96 into register a, (pasted with "ap), the yanked lines can be appended to the register with:
:91,96y A
I.e. the capitalization of the A register causes an appending operation into register a instead of an overwrite. Capitalization of the register always works like this, e.g. :let #A=';' appends a ; to register a.
Using plus (+) or minus (-) references lines relative to the current cursor position:
:-10,+10y b
I.e. it would yank(y) 21 lines around the current cursor position and put them in register b.
An absence of input actually represents the current cursor position as well, which means that this:
:-5,y a
would yank the text from 5 lines above to current cursor position into named buffer a, and:
:,+5y a
would yank the 5 lines after the current cursor position into buffer a.
Note: If you have a macro in buffer a it was just overwritten by the previous yank, as yank registers and macro registers are really the same thing. Which is why, coincidentally, you can paste a macro, edit it, and then yank it back into it's register. I personally use letters reached by my left hand for yanks, and letters reached by my right hand for macros.
Moving blocks of text around, looks like this:
:+10,+13m.
which means move the four lines positioned 10 lines ahead of current cursor, to below the current line.
Addendum
I previously confused ya in :91,95ya a to be somehow synonymous with ya{motion} where the motion was supplied by 91,95. This was incorrect and the "a" in ya is completely unnecessary. In my defense, my help yank does not convey that ya is a possible alias of yank.
The best solution would be to enter "visual mode", by pressing v. And after selecting lines just copy them by pressing y. Then paste copied lines by pressing p.
Vim's :help index describes g as:
|g| g{char} extended commands, see |g| below
Scroll down (or :help g) for a list.
As a long time Vi/Vim user I tend to use 'marks' instead of line numbers (or 'line markers'). It works like this: m is the 'mark' character; then use any letter to identify/name the mark. To return to a mark preface the named mark with a single quote ( 'a)These marks can be used as the range. Examples:
File:
<line 1>
<line 2>
<line 3>
<line 4>
<line 5>
When in command mode move cursor to line 2, typema. scroll to line 4, typemb.
To yank from mark a to mark b type:
:'a,'byank
To delete from mark a to mark b type:
:'a,'bdel
To search from mark a to mark b and replace 'ine' with 'ink':
:'a,'bs/ine/ink/g
To copy mark a through mark b and paste below the current position (the 'dot' always references the line where the cursor currently is positioned):
:'a,'bco .
Shift lines of code, between mark a through mark b, one tab to the right (use opposite chevron, <, to move left):
:'a,'b>
In command mode you can move back to marks by simply typing 'a to move back to the line marked a. Typing '' moves you back to previous position (unfortuantely only remembers the previous position, not two back).
You can yank to named buffers, copy, delete lines, search&replace just portions of your code, etc. without needing to know the line numbers.
To yank lines from line number 81 to 91 :
approach 1: 81gg11yy
not bad but you have to do little bit of math to find out how many lines to yank
approach 2: 81gg then shift+v then 91gg then y
BEST IN MY OPINION because this is straight forward, you only have to know the obvious thing i.e from which line number to which line number you want to yank