sorry if this isn't exactly a programming question.
I mainly use Vim to edit my programs. So my question to all the Vim experts out there is:
is there a way to select and scroll in Vim? I want to copy a bunch of code, and in the pass I have always copied everything I can view on the vim screen then paste it to where-ever, then scroll down then copy and paste..repeat..until done. Is there a way I can efficiently copy a large block of code?
Formatting lines of code- you know when you copy and paste some code sometime 10 lines of code turn into 30 really messy lines of code? well, is there a command to reformat the code? In the pass I manually go back and properly indent everything which sometime is super repetitive when you got 500 lines. I saw on other sites something about the command being 1G = G can someone confirm that? when I try it in my command line, I get a error E464: ambiguous use of user-command line which I have no idea what that even means.
I do know there is a help command in Vim,but I have no idea where to even start when there is something like 200 txt files and frankly this is faster :)
Your questions are around basic use of vi / Vim. Do yourself a favor and go through a Vim tutorial; you'll find many on the web, and Vim comes with it's own introduction, vimtutor.
On Unix, if Vim has been properly installed, you can start it from the shell:
vimtutor
On MS-Windows you can find it in the Program/Vim menu. Or execute
vimtutor.bat in the $VIMRUNTIME directory.
Also, learn how to look up commands and navigate the built-in :help; it is comprehensive and offers many tips. You won't learn Vim as fast as other editors, but if you commit to continuous learning, it'll prove a very powerful and efficient editor.
The vim way is to entirely forget selection using the mouse for more than a screenful, but to set a mark, move to the other end of the desired text, then yank to mark:
Set mark m at beginning of text with mm
Move to end of text
Yank to mark with y'm
Paste with P or p
This whole answer is only helpful if you can use register + as clipboard. Try "+yy in VIM, try to paste it in another application to see if you can use the clipboard, if you can:
You should really read the manuals and other help:
To yank lines (simple) : http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Moving_lines_up_or_down
To address lines: Addressing in VIM
That is to start with.
Some examples of what you can do:
:.,+50y a yank 50 lines from current and 50 ahead to register a, use A instead to append to register A.
:.,/some pattern/y A yank (append) from current to first line that match /some pattern/ to register a.
"Ay/some pattern<CR> will do the same thing.
Once you learn how you should address, it's easy to combine commands with addressing, e.g. the "indenting command" =:
=} auto indent to the end of current paragraph
=/some pattern<CR> auto indent to line matching /some pattern/
Mark something in Visual mode and type = it will auto indent the selected text.
And so on... So read manuals, you will have a great use of it.
In the above examples you can use register + to "yank" to the clipboard instead of register a.
How do I go to first line in a file in vim ?
In command mode (press Esc if you are not sure) you can use:
gg,
:1,
1G,
or 1gg.
Type "gg" in command mode. This brings the cursor to the first line.
Go to first line
:1
or Ctrl + Home
Go to last line
:%
or Ctrl + End
Go to another line (f.i. 27)
:27
[Works On VIM 7.4 (2016) and 8.0 (2018)]
If you are using gvim, you could just hit Ctrl + Home to go the first line. Similarly, Ctrl + End goes to the last line.
Solution
Move to the true starting character of the file, even if it is a whitespace character, by typing only two characters:
go
Go to [count] byte in the buffer. Default [count] is one, start of
the file.
It's arguably even easier to remember than gg (e.g., mnemonic: "Just go to the real beginning of the file, already!"), but perhaps not as comfortable as gg in terms of minimal finger motion (or the ability to use a single finger on one hand to drum this particular "cursor motion beat.")
Unfortunately gg has the "limitation" that it does not go to the true beginning character of the first line when this character and perhaps the characters that follow happen to be whitespaces.
The following other options have the same limitation:
1G
:1<CR>
<Ctrl>-<Home>
Alternatives
Along with gg0, typing <Ctrl>-<Home> <Home> does perform the desired cursor motion to the true first character of the file. It seems somewhat antithetical to ViM principals to use a combination like the latter alternative, but who knows, there may be those that prefer this particular (logical) two key-stroke variation to go, which is why I present it as an potential alternative.
An Aside
Somewhat perplexingly, <Ctrl>-<End> does position the cursor at the true last character of the file, whitespace or not, and is probably the only single (logical) key stroke to do so. Personally, I prefer G$ (or the far more contrived Gg_ to position the cursor at the last non-whitespace character of the file), but if my fingers just happen to be "on the long road home after visiting other relatives in that far away neighborhood of the keyboard and there is a pressing need to stop for gas at the end of the file," well, you just might catch me "breaking the rules" and striking <Ctrl>-<End> to "get the job done."
Limitations
The only pre-requisite for go to work is that ViM is compiled with the byte_offset feature enabled (i.e., +byte_offset). Fortunately, this feature is enabled by default.
To check your particular build of ViM for this feature, you can use the :ve[rsion] command or vim --version from the command line. Both of these display the values of all of the build-time features that were in effect when the instance of ViM being tested was compiled. It is a good idea to commit these all-feature query commands to memory, btw, since the ViM help often refers to feature based restrictions while explaining commands and topics whose availability and/or effect is build feature controlled or restricted.
I have this dataset in a csv file
1.33570301776, 3.61194e-06, 7.24503e-06, -9.91572e-06, 1.25098e-05, 0.0102828, 0.010352, 0.0102677, 0.0103789, 0.00161604, 0.00167978, 0.00159998, 0.00182596, 0.0019804, 0.0133687, 0.010329, 0.00163437, 0.00191202, 0.0134425
1.34538754675, 3.3689e-06, 9.86066e-06, -9.12075e-06, 1.18058e-05, 0.00334344, 0.00342207, 0.00332897, 0.00345504, 0.00165532, 0.00170412, 0.00164234, 0.00441903, 0.00459294, 0.00449357, 0.00339737, 0.00166596, 0.00451926, 0.00455153
1.34808186291, -1.99011e-06, 6.53026e-06, -1.18909e-05, 9.52337e-06, 0.00158065, 0.00166529, 0.0015657, 0.0017022, 0.000740644, 0.00078635, 0.000730052, 0.00219736, 0.00238191, 0.00212762, 0.00163783, 0.000750669, 0.00230171, 0.00217917
As you can see, the numbers are formatted differently and misaligned. Is there a way in vim to quickly align the columns properly, so that the result is this
1.33570301776, 3.61194e-06, 7.24503e-06, -9.91572e-06, 1.25098e-05, 0.0102828, 0.010352, 0.0102677, 0.0103789, 0.00161604, 0.00167978, 0.00159998, 0.00182596, 0.0019804, 0.0133687, 0.010329, 0.00163437, 0.00191202, 0.0134425
1.34538754675, 3.3689e-06, 9.86066e-06, -9.12075e-06, 1.18058e-05, 0.00334344, 0.00342207, 0.00332897, 0.00345504,0.00165532, 0.00170412, 0.00164234, 0.00441903, 0.00459294, 0.00449357, 0.00339737, 0.00166596, 0.00451926, 0.00455153
1.34808186291, -1.99011e-06, 6.53026e-06, -1.18909e-05, 9.52337e-06, 0.00158065, 0.00166529, 0.0015657, 0.0017022, 0.000740644,0.00078635, 0.000730052,0.00219736, 0.00238191, 0.00212762, 0.00163783, 0.000750669,0.00230171, 0.00217917
That would be great to copy and paste sections with ctrl-v. Any hints?
If you're on some kind of UNIX (Linux, etc), you can cheat and filter it through the column(1) command.
:%!column -t
The above will parse on delimiters inside string literals which is wrong, so you will likely need pre-processing steps and specifying the delimiter for this file for example:
%!sed 's/","/\&/' | column -t -s '&'
Sometimes we want to align just two columns. In that case, we don't need any plugins and can use pure Vim functionality like this:
Choose a separator. In OP's post this is a comma, in my example this is =.
Add spaces before/after it. I use s/=/= ...spaces... / in visual selection for this.
Locate to the longest word and place cursor after it.
Remove all the extra whitespace using dw and vertical movement.
Example of this technique demonstrated below:
I don't find myself needing to align things often enough to install another plugin, so this was my preferred way of accomplishing it - especially that it doesn't require much thinking.
As sunny256 suggested, the column command is a great way of doing this on Unix/Linux machines, but if you want to do it in pure Vim (so that it can be used in Windows as well), the easiest way is to install the Align plugin and then do:
:%Align ,
:%s/\(\s\+\),\s/,\1/g
The first line aligns the entries on the commas and the second moves the comma so that it's flush with the preceding value. You may be able to use AlignCtrl to define a custom mapping that does the whole lot in one go, but I can never remember how to use it...
Edit
If you don't mind two spaces between entries and you want to do this in one command, you can also do:
:%Align ,\zs
This is a great answer using vim macros: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8363786/59384 - basically, you start recording a macro, format the first column, stop recording then repeat the macro for all remaining lines.
Copy/pasted from that answer:
qa0f:w100i <Esc>19|dwjq4#a
Note the single space after the 100i, and the <Esc> means "press escape"--don't type "<Esc>" literally.
Translation:
qa -- record macro in hotkey a
0 -- go to beginning of line
f: -- go to first : symbol
w -- go to next non-space character after the symbol
100i <Esc> -- insert 100 spaces
19| -- go to 19th column (value 19 figured out manually)
dw -- delete spaces until : symbol
j -- go to next line
q -- stop recording macro
4#a -- run the macro 4 times (for the remaining 4 lines)
We now also have the fabulous EasyAlign plugin, written by junegunn.
Demonstration GIF from its README:
Also, Tabularize is quite good http://vimcasts.org/episodes/aligning-text-with-tabular-vim/
You could use the csv.vim plugin.
:%ArrangeColumn
However, this will not do exactly what you have asked: it will right adjust the contents of cells, whereas you have your values aligned by the decimal point or by the first digit.
The plugin has many other useful commands for working with CSV files.
also if you have very long columns it can be handy to disable default wrapping
:set nowrap
:%!column -t
(note in debian you also have a further option for column -n which if you want to split multiple adjacent delimiters)
Here’s a pure Vim script answer, no plugins, no macros:
It might be most clear to start out with my problem’s solution as an example. I selected the lines of code I wanted to affect, then used the following command (recall that entering command mode from visual mode automatically prepends the “'<,'>”, so it acts on the visual range):
:'<,'>g``normal / "value<0d>D70|P`
Except I did NOT actually type “<0d>”. You can enter unprintable characters on the command line by pressing ctrl-v, then the key you want to type. “<0d>” is what is rendered on the command line after I typed ‘ctrl-v enter’. Here, it’s parsed by the “normal” command as the exit from “/” search mode. The cursor then jumps to “ value” in the current line.
Then we simply [D]elete the rest of the line, jump to column 70 (or whatever you need in your case), and [P]ut what we just deleted. This does mean we have to determine the width of the widest line, up to our search. If you haven’t put that information in your statusline, you can see the column of the cursor by entering the normal mode command ‘g ctrl-g’. Also note that jumping to a column that doesn’t exist requires the setting 'virtualedit'!
I left the search term for the :g(lobal) command empty, since we used a visual block and wanted to affect every line, but you can leave off using a visual selection (and the “'<,'>”) and put a search term there instead. Or combine a visual selection and a search term to narrow things more finely/easily.
Here’s something I learned recently: if you mess up on a complex command mode command, undo with ‘u’ (if it affected the buffer), then press “q:” to enter a special command history buffer that acts much like a conventional buffer. Edit any line and press enter, and the changed command is entered as a new command. Indispensable if you don’t want to have to stress over formulating everything perfectly the first time.
I just wrote tablign for this purpose. Install with
pip3 install tablign --user
Then simply mark the table in vim and do
:'<,'>:!tablign
Pretty old question, but I've recently availed myself of an excellent vim plugin that enables table formatting either on the fly or after-the-fact (as your use case requires):
https://github.com/dhruvasagar/vim-table-mode
I have this in my .vimrc.
command! CSV set nowrap | %s/,/,|/g | %!column -n -t -s "|"
This aligns the columns while keeping the comma, which may be needed later for correct reading. For example, with Python Pandas read_csv(..., skipinitialspace=True), thanks Pandas guys for this smart option, otherwise in vim %s/,\s\+/,/g. It may be easier if your column has the option --output-separator I guess, my doesn't and I'm not sure why (my man page for column says 2004, on ubuntu 18.04, not sure ubuntu will get a new version). Anyway, this works for me, and comment if you have any suggestions.
I made a cli tool written in Perl.
You can find it here: https://github.com/bas080/colcise
I'm not sure this is possible, but I'm interesting in making this happen.
Ideally, I would like to map this feature to SHIFT+CTRL+3.
I'm looking for a way to have Vim enter a comment (single line) which corresponds to the syntax of the file I'm editing. If there are multiple single-line comment styles, Vim could either automatically pick one, or give me the choice. If the single-line comment has two parts (e.g. /* and */), then pressing SHIFT+CTRL+3 the first time will start the comment, and the second time will close the comment.
Examples:
Python: #
JavaScript: //
C, C++: /* with */ or //
I know there are scripts which will insert comments for you, but I haven't seen any that will do this based on the syntax of the file.
I highly recommend NERD Commenter.
Sort of! I don't believe vim will do this out of the box, but you can install plugins that will do fairly intelligent commenting (using movement keys, visual line highlighting, etc) that are specific to the filetype being edited. You can get these plugins off of vim.org, and you should be able to make your own key mappings in your .vimrc file if you don't like the ones they come with.
tComment is pretty well regarded, and has worked for me.
I've heard that EnhCommentify might be better, but I haven't used it myself.
Seems like a similar question to this:
How to comment in vim while respecting the indent?
Use the nerd commenter plugin:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1218
See: this script which provides a function to commented a highlighted area in visual mode.
You want to start a comment in insert mode so your function would look more like:
fun CommentLines()
exe ":s#^#".g:Comment."#g"
endfun
Not quite what you're looking for, but efficient, and I suppose you know which comment to use.
(all this in command mode)
Put your cursor to the first line you want to comment. We willl then set a marker called a (valid names are a-z, single character) by typing
ma
put the cursor to the last line, then set a marker called b by typing
mb
Then comment the whole block (by searching for a newline and inserting the comment character (note the use of "#" as search delimiter because otherwise wee have to escape the "/")
:'a,'bs#^#//#
or for Python:
:'a,'bs/^/#/
To uncomment:
:'a,'bs#^//##
As we do line comments, it doesn't matter if we have other comments already in the file, they will be preserved.
I want to ditch my current editor. I feel I need something else. That do not expose my hands to the risk of RSI. I need to see why I should change editor. And it would be nice to believe, that I will be coding when I'm 80 years old.
All the big guys out there are using Vim. The only Emacs guy I know are RMS. Paul Graham is a Vi dude.
. (dot) - repeats the last editing action. Really handy when you need to perform a few similar edits.
:help usr_12.txt
That'll bring up a section in the help system that discusses "Clever Tricks". If those don't get you excited I don't know what will!
Recording macros
The asterisk.
*
Its effect: Immediately search for the next instance of the word under the cursor.
The best thing is the efficiency with which you can edit code (which is done a lot in programming). The commands such as
cw to change a word
dw to delete a word
ct, to change all text until the next comma
ci( to change the contents of the parentheses you're currently in
xp to correct spelling mistakes ("spleling" -> cursor on l -> xp -> "spelling")
o to insert a new line below and start editing
O to insert a new line above
Then there is the possibility to work with named registers very quickly. To move a block, just select it, press d, then move to it's new location and press p. Much faster than Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. Use "ud to delete text and move it to register u (I use this one for the commenting template).
And also Vim has all the scripting support you need (either using it's native scripting language or using Python, Ruby, ...)
the numbers.
in command mode
type a number ( any number of digits )
type a command.
that command will be executed $number times
ie:
99dd
erases the next 99 lines.
The fast startup time.
The sharp distinction between editing and viewing. (you know when you edit)
The only way you ever find what you are looking for is with search "/" and that is good, since it much faster than your eyes.
But the best command(s) are:
/ - search string
ZZ - quit
. - repeat last insert (I think)
%! - insert unix command
Handling multi line regexps in search strings with "\_.". While checking over 4GB text files of various formats, it had saved my life several times.
Why are you looking to be convinced to start using a different editor? If you're happy with what you have now, stick. If not, perhaps ask about editors with features that you lack.
Even if you are using Visual Studio there is the wonderful vsvim.
I love the speed of Vim but I find it lacks the features of a modern IDE for C++ development. Eclipse CDT with the viPlugin is a good compromise.
You get the power and source overview provided by Eclipse CDT with the speed and flexibility of Vim for coding.
The lovely built in regular expression evaluator.
Maybe reading "Come home to vim" by Steve Losh article is a good start, or
a series of videos about interesting plugins. And be sure to see some articles on the site vimcasts.org
You should map Caps Lock to Esc. It will make getting out of insert mode feel natural as opposed to the awkward move you must make to press the ESC key. Besides, who uses Caps Lock anyway?
\v
Make your regular expressions mostly Perl compatible.
See very magic section here for more information.
To be truly inspired, you must see a vim guru in action. If you do not have a local guru, here is a video to inspire you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDWBJOXs_iI&feature=related
If you don't already know vim, the speed at which code is navigated, sliced, and diced will be indistinguishable from magic. After a few months of studying vim, the same editing speed will seem commonplace.