In Vim, one can join two lines by typing capital J.
However, these are usually joined by a space.
I seem to remember there was a way to change the character used for the joining by setting some variable, but I can't seem to find it again.
I'd appreciate it if anyone could remind me, or confirm that it can't be done.
When I want to join just a few lines I use a 3 keys combo (normal mode):
Jr,
being , the joining character.
In case I want to join more lines or even join lines in groups, I use the previous combo with a macro.
For example, to transform 3 lines in a 3 columns CSV table, I record this macro (assigned to letter j of course):
qjJr,Jr,jq
So, using #j joins 3 lines using , and goes to the next line.
10#j converts 10 lines.
There isn't a setting that allows you to do this directly, see:
:help J
in particular, the text below the list of commands.
A couple of ways you could do this:
:nnoremap J gJi.<ESC>
" or
let joinchar = ';'
nnoremap J :s/\n/\=joinchar/<CR>
The latter option allows you to change it on the fly by changing the joinchar option.
Try something like this in your .vimrc:
nnoremap Y Jxi*<Esc>
It'll remap Y to join the lines with a *.
From http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Remap_join_to_merge_comment_lines
put this in your .vimrc:
function! JoinWithLeader(count, leaderText)
let l:linecount = a:count
" default number of lines to join is 2
if l:linecount < 2
let l:linecount = 2
endif
echo l:linecount . " lines joined"
" clear errmsg so we can determine if the search fails
let v:errmsg = ''
" save off the search register to restore it later because we will clobber
" it with a substitute command
let l:savsearch = #/
while l:linecount > 1
" do a J for each line (no mappings)
normal! J
" remove the comment leader from the current cursor position
silent! execute 'substitute/\%#\s*\%('.a:leaderText.'\)\s*/ /'
" check v:errmsg for status of the substitute command
if v:errmsg=~'Pattern not found'
" just means the line wasn't a comment - do nothing
elseif v:errmsg!=''
echo "Problem with leader pattern for JoinWithLeader()!"
else
" a successful substitute will move the cursor to line beginning,
" so move it back
normal! ``
endif
let l:linecount = l:linecount - 1
endwhile
" restore the #/ register
let #/ = l:savsearch
endfunction
nnoremap <space> :<C-U>call JoinWithLeader(v:count, '"')<CR>
This also allows you to remap J to something else.
It will quicker if you replace the end of line with a comma (or join character)
:%s/$/,
and then joining multiple lines either by providing a range, or by selecting lines in visual mode and using the join command
10J
It's mapping. You can read the tutorial in vim wikia :
Mapping keys in vim
Try the command below in command mode, and try to press . This should work :)
:map <space> J
Related
I have a testing file with the content:
var a = f
ff
fff
Then I moved the cursor on the f character in line 1, ctrl+v selected the two f below it (■ means selection).
var a = ■
■f
■ff
I want to change the text to this:
var a = "f"
"ff"
"fff"
So I executed this command:
:normal i"ctrl+vEscA"
But the quotes were added to the whole line. Is it possible to do operations on only block-wise visual selection (not the whole line)? Note that this example was made only for discussing Vim skills. I'm not trying to solving any problems, just want to learn Vim skills.
The problem is that all :-commands can take linewise range only. Recall that after pressing : in Visual mode you got :'<,'>_ which is a hint strong enough (see :h mark-motions in case you don't remember about backtick vs. single-quote).
So you can't process visually selected text directly but have to yank it into register first.
One solution is to yank-put the text into the lines of its own. Then you can apply your command(s) and move the new text where it should be.
This is how it's done in that "vis" plugin mentioned in the comment by #phd and the linked answer. But it's so big and bloated that we'd better implement such functionality ourselves.
" apply command to a visual selection
" a:cmd - any "range" command
" a:mods - :h command-modifiers
" a:trim - true if we need to trim trailing spaces from selection text
function s:block(cmd, mods, trim) abort
" save last line no
let l:last = line('$')
" yank selected text into the register "9"
silent normal! gv"9y
" put it at buffer's end
call append(l:last, getreg(9, 1, 1))
" trim trailing spaces
if a:trim
execute 'keepj keepp' l:last..'+,$s/\s\+$//e'
endif
" apply our command
" note: we assume that the command never enters Visual mode
execute a:mods l:last..'+,$' a:cmd
" get the changed text back into the register "9"
call setreg(9, getline(l:last + 1, '$'), visualmode())
" clean up
call deletebufline('%', l:last + 1, '$')
" replace the selection
" note: the old text goes into the register "1", "1" into "2", and so on.
" old register "9" is lost anyway, see :h v_p
silent normal! gv"9p
endfunction
" our interface is a user command
command! -bang -range -nargs=1 -complete=command B call s:block(<q-args>, <q-mods>, <bang>0)
Now you can select your block (do not forget about extending it until lines' ends!), and execute:
:'<,'>B! normal! i"^CA"
Note: ^C stands for Ctrl-VCtrl-C
On possible solution:
:'<,'>norm $ciw"ctrl-v ctrl-r""
OBS: Ctrl-v Ctrl-r should be typed literally
Another solution:
:'<,'>s/\w\+$/"&"
I would like to search with vimgrep only within a visual selection of the current file and not the whole file. Is that possible and how? I couldn't find something for this case with Google or in vim help.
The reason why I want this is because I need the result in the quicklist (copen) and :g/FOO which is showing the matching lines at the bottom is not doing this job.
Yes, you can, as Vim has special regular expression atoms for mark positions, and the start and end of the visual selection is marked by '< and '>. As there are atoms for on / before / after a mark, we need to combine those to cover the entire range of selected lines:
On the selection start | after the selection start and before the selection end | on the selection end.
To limit the search to the current file, the special % keyword is used.
:vimgrep/\%(\%'<\|\%>'<\%<'>\|\%'>\)FOO/ %
You are on the right path with using :g command. The basic idea is do something like this:
:g/FOO/caddexpr expand("%") . ":" . line(".") . ":" . getline(".")
Now lets make it a command
command! -range -nargs=+ VisualSeach cgetexpr []|<line1>,<line2>g/<args>/caddexpr expand("%") . ":" . line(".") . ":" . getline(".")
Now you can do :VisualSearch FOO and it will add the searches to the quickfix list.
Note that the issue w/ this is only finds one match per line.
This is from Steve Losh's vimrc. It makes * work on the visual selection. I've gotten pretty dependent on it.
" Visual Mode */# from Scrooloose {{{
function! s:VSetSearch()
let temp = ##
norm! gvy
let #/ = '\V' . substitute(escape(##, '\'), '\n', '\\n', 'g')
let ## = temp
endfunction
vnoremap * :<C-u>call <SID>VSetSearch()<CR>//<CR><c-o>
vnoremap # :<C-u>call <SID>VSetSearch()<CR>??<CR><c-o>
Often times when reviewing log files in vim, I'll highlight interesting lines using marks. At some point, I'd like to be able to copy all of the interesting lines (either all marked lines, or a list of marks) to either a register or another file (it doesn't really matter which; the goal is to facilitate writing a summary). I haven't been able to find any built in way to do this; is it possible in vim?
I suppose it's probably a fairly straightforward function; probably looking something like this, but my vimscript abilities are very weak:
for cur_mark in list_of_marks
goto mark
yank current line and append to register
Has anyone ever written anything similar that they can point me to?
Thanks
EDIT: I posted the accepted solution at https://github.com/mikeage/vim-yankmarks
As always, there are few things that are more motivating than asking for help. Here's what I came up with; feedback welcome.
function! Yankmark()
let save_cursor = getpos(".")
let n = 0
" I should really make this a parameter...
let marks_to_yank="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
let nummarks = strlen(marks_to_yank)
" Clear the a register
let #a=''
while n < nummarks
let c = strpart(marks_to_yank, n, 1)
" Is the mark defined
if getpos("'".c)[2] != 0
" using g' instead of ' doesn't mess with the jumplist
exec "normal g'".c
normal "Ayy
endif
let n = n + 1
endwhile
call setpos('.', save_cursor)
endfunction
Mikeage had a great idea; here's a more refined version of his function turned into a command:
":YankMarks [{marks}] [{register}]
" Yank all marked (with [a-z] / {marks} marks) lines into
" the default register / {register} (in the order of the
" marks).
function! s:YankMarks( ... )
let l:marks = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
let l:register = '"'
if a:0 > 2
echohl ErrorMsg
echomsg 'Too many arguments'
echohl None
return
elseif a:0 == 2
let l:marks = a:1
let l:register = a:2
elseif a:0 == 1
if len(a:1) == 1
let l:register = a:1
else
let l:marks = a:1
endif
endif
let l:lines = ''
let l:yankedMarks = ''
for l:mark in split(l:marks, '\zs')
let l:lnum = line("'" . l:mark)
if l:lnum > 0
let l:yankedMarks .= l:mark
let l:lines .= getline(l:lnum) . "\n"
endif
endfor
call setreg(l:register, l:lines, 'V')
echomsg printf('Yanked %d line%s from mark%s %s',
\ len(l:yankedMarks),
\ len(l:yankedMarks) == 1 ? '' : 's',
\ len(l:yankedMarks) == 1 ? '' : 's',
\ l:yankedMarks
\) . (l:register ==# '"' ? '' : ' into register ' . l:register)
endfunction
command! -bar -nargs=* YankMarks call <SID>YankMarks(<f-args>)
A different way of accomplishing this might be using the :global command. The global command takes the form :g/{pattern}/{cmd}. The command, {cmd}, will be executed on all lines matching {pattern}.
Append lines matching a pattern to a register:
:g/pattern/yank A
Append matching line to a log file:
:g/pattern/w >> file.log
Of course if you want to find line matching a mark you can match it in your pattern. The following pattern matches a line with mark m.
:g/\%'m/w >> file.log
To do something like this. (Note: I am using \v to turn on very magic)
:g/\v(%'a|%'b|%'m)/yank A
Of course if a pattern won't work you can do this by hand. Instead of marking the lines just build up the lines as you go. Just yank a line to an uppercase register to append.
"Ayy
Or do a write append with a range of a single line
:.w >> file.log
For more help see
:h :g
:h :w_a
:h /\%'m
:h /\v
You can do something like:
:redir #a
:silent marks XYZN
:redir END
"ap
That way the output of the :marks command will be redirected to the a register. Note, that it will only lists (in the above case) the X, Y, Z and N marks (as the arguments), and if there was an a register, it will be deleted/overwritten.
Also note, that it might not give the desired output, but gives you a starting point...
I like the solution from Mikeage, though I would probably solve this with the multiselect - Create multiple selections and operate plugin. This also has the benefit that you don't run out of marks.
With the plugin, you can select lines with <Leader>msa or :MSAdd. Finally, yank all lines with:
:let #a=''
:MSExecCmd yank A
If you use an upper-case register name when yanking into a specific register, Vim will append the yanked content instead of overwriting the register's value.
So, for example:
"ayy - yank current line to register a, overwriting
[move]
"Ayy - append this line to register a
[move]
"ap - paste all yanked material
See :help quotea for more details.
Many people use spaces rather than tabs. I use both of them. Tabs at the beginning of line and spaces from the first non-whitespace character. No problem for starting new document and in case I have to modify one better adapt to using format. Still sometimes I need to fix the spaces issue anyway.
According to Search and replace I can just do :%s/spaces_for_tab/tab/g. It is simple and it will work for many cases. Anyway I want to refactor only spaces at the beginning of line.
This is more of a regex issue. To anchor at the beginning of the line, use the caret, e.g.
s/^ /\t/
Or do it using vim's builtin functionality:
:set tabstop=4 "four spaces will make up for one tab
:set noexpandtab "tell vim to keep tabs instead of inserting spaces
:retab "let vim handle your case
By the way, I too prefer tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. Unfortunately, vim doesn't handle this well (and I don't know what other editors do), so I mostly use :set expandtab (maybe see :set softtabstop).
I've written a simple func for it. Anyway it will work only for 4-space tab.
fu! Fixspaces()
while search('^\t* \{4}') != 0
execute ':%s/^\t*\zs \{4}/\t/g'
endwhile
endfu
You can suggest better solution, if exists, and I will use it with pleasure.
The issue is that this func replaces spaces in strings as well.
David's response is very elegant but it doesn't address leading whitespace that has a mixture of tabs and spaces. For example to convert a line like:
<SPACE><SPACE><TAB>something...
you have to know the position of the tab to determine the number of spaces needed to replace the <TAB> and reach the next tabstop. My solution below, although not as compact as David's, addresses this. It also allows me to select which way to use leading whitespace without depending upon &expandtab. I would appreciate any suggestions to improve my code...
function! TabsToSpaces(...)
let ts = &tabstop
let pos = getpos('.')
while search('^ *\zs\t', "w") != 0
let l:curpos = getcharpos('.')
" The number of spaces needed depends upon the position of the <TAB>
let numsp = 1 + ts - ( curpos[2] % ts )
if numsp == 9
let numsp = 1
endif
silent execute ':s/^ *\zs\t/'.repeat(' ', numsp).'/'
endwhile
if a:0 == 0
echo 'Changed leading tabs to spaces'
endif
call setpos('.', pos)
endfunction
function! SpacesToTabs(...)
let ts = &tabstop
let pos = getpos('.')
" First normalize all tabs to spaces
call TabsToSpaces("quiet")
while search('^\t* \{'.ts.'}') != 0
silent execute ':%s/^\t*\zs \{'.ts.'}/\t/g'
endwhile
if a:0 == 0
echo 'Changed leading spaces to tabs'
endif
call setpos('.', pos)
endfunction
" Some keystrokes to implement the spaces/tabs functions
nmap <Leader>st :execute SpacesToTabs()<CR>
nmap <Leader>ts :execute TabsToSpaces()<CR>
I took Martin's answer and improved on it a bit if anyone's interested:
function Fixspaces()
let ts = &tabstop
let pos = getpos('.')
if &expandtab
while search('^ *\t') != 0
silent execute ':%s/^ *\zs\t/'.repeat(' ', ts).'/g'
endwhile
echo 'Changed tabs to spaces'
else
while search('^\t* \{'.ts.'}') != 0
silent execute ':%s/^\t*\zs \{'.ts.'}/\t/g'
endwhile
echo 'Changed spaces to tabs'
endif
call setpos('.', pos)
endfunction
This function does the appropriate thing depending on the values of the expandtab and tabstop settings and also remembers where the cursor is.
Say I have multiple blocks of the following code in a file (spaces is irrelavent):
sdgfsdg dfg
dfgdfgf ddfg
dfgdfgdfg dfgfdg
How do you find/highlight all the occurrences?
What I ideally want to do is to visually select the code block and then press search to find all occurrences.
Maybe you should look at :
Search for visually selected text
I've taken it from here
Try this. Include this script somewhere in your runtimepath (see :help runtimepath). A simple option would be to put it in your vimrc. Visually select the thing you want to search for and press ,/ (the comma key and then the forward-slash key).
" Search for other instances of the current visual range
" This works by:
" <ESC> Cancel the visual range (it's location is remembered)
" / Start the search
" <C-R>= Insert the result of an expression on
" the search line (see :help c_CTRL-R_= )
" GetVisualRange()<CR> Call the function created below
" <CR> Run the search
vmap ,/ <ESC>/<C-R>=GetVisualRange()<CR><CR>
" Create the function that extracts the contents of the visual range
function! GetVisualRange()
" Get the start and end positions of the current range
let StartPosition = getpos("'<")
let EndPosition = getpos("'>")
" Prefix the range with \V to disable "magic"
" See :help \V
let VisualRange = '\V'
" If the start and end of the range are on the same line
if StartPosition[1] == EndPosition[1]
" Just extract the relevant part of the line
let VisualRange .= getline(StartPosition[1])[StartPosition[2]-1:EndPosition[2]-1]
else
" Otherwise, get the end of the first line
let VisualRange .= getline(StartPosition[1])[StartPosition[2]-1:]
" Then the all of the intermediate lines
for LineNum in range(StartPosition[1]+1, EndPosition[1]-1)
let VisualRange .= '\n' . getline(LineNum)
endfor
" Then the start of the last line
let VisualRange .= '\n' . getline(EndPosition[1])[:EndPosition[2]-1]
endif
" Replace legitimate backslashes with double backslashes to prevent
" a literal \t being interpreted as a tab
let VisualRange = substitute(VisualRange, '\\[nV]\#!', '\\\\', "g")
" Return the result
return VisualRange
endfunction
The text being searched for is stored in the / register. You can't yank or delete directly into this register, but you can assign to it using `let'.
Try this:
Use visual mode to highlight the code you want to search for
Type "ay to yank that highlighted selection into register a
Type :let #/ = #a to copy register a into the search register /
At this point, all code matching your selection will be highlighted, and you can navigate through occurrences using n/N just as you would a regular search.
Of course, you can use any temporary register instead of a. And it shouldn't be too difficult to get this command sequence mapped for easy use.
Quick and dirty partial solution:
:set hlsearch
*
The hlsearch option (on by default in some vim configs, but I always turn it off) makes vim highlight all found instances of the current search. Pressing * in normal mode searches for the word under the cursor. So this will highlight all instances of the word under the cursor.