The Book of Knowledge

VimTricks.md

• The Book of Knowledge
  • VimTricks.md
  • Vim Tips and Tricks
    • Using Vim as a Pipe
    • Simple Math
    • Bouncing
    • Checking Variables
    • Formatting
    • Unicode
    • Changing Case
      • Case Change Examples
    • Patterns with Line Feeds
    • Coalesce Blank Lines
    • Non-breaking Space
    • Spelling
      • Highlighting
      • Searching for Misspellings
      • To add words to your own word list
      • Finding suggestions for bad words
    • Renumbering Lists
      • Renumbering using perl
      • Renumbering using Visual Mode
      • Renumbering using Macros
      • Renumbering using External Programs
    • Perl
    • Working with Markdown Tables in Vim

Vim Tips and Tricks

Using Vim as a Pipe

vim - -es +'g/foo/p' +'qa!' --not-a-term
vim < /dev/tty <(cat)

Simple Math

CTRL-A - increment number under cursor
CTRL-X - decrement number under cursor

Bouncing

Matchit - use g% to find next/previous match
          use % to find match to construct under cursor (if, (, ), {, } etc.

Checking Variables

:verbose set variable?
OR
:echo "Variable:" &variable

Formatting

gq*direction* will format a line, paragraph, etc. based on direction. You can also pipe to fmt using range!}fmt. Add the -tu or -c to control indenting, and -p prefix to add a prefix.

Unicode

Ctrl-Vu HEX will input the unicode characer HEX. For Example, insert a ✓ checkmark when in Insert Mode using Ctrl-Vu2713.

Changing Case

g<change><motion>
 g = go
 *change* = U Upper, u Lower, ~ Invert
 Doubled *change* means "entire line"
 *motion* = G end of Document, j Line Above, w Word
To turn one line into title caps (title case), make every first letter of a word uppercase:
   :s/\v<(.)(\w*)/\u\1\L\2/g

Case Change Examples

Patterns with Line Feeds

The regex construct “_” adds the newline character to the character class. So if [\s\d] matches any whitespace or digit, \_[\s\d] matches any whitespace, digit, or linefeed. You can also literally add \n to a class.

Coalesce Blank Lines

Allow only 1 blank line between regions with non-blank lines: :v/\S/,/\S/-j

Non-breaking Space

To find out the character code of the non-breaking space, place the cursor over it and type use the normal mode command ga. Vim will display a legend at the bottom. Note the hex representation. If the hex representation is 00a0, then you could execute the following command to do the substitution:

    :%s/\%u00a0/\~/g

Spelling

To turn on spelling: :setlocal spell spelllang=en_us

Highlighting

Name | Description | Highlight |—|— SpellBad | word not recognized | hl-SpellBad SpellCap | word not capitalised | hl-SpellCap SpellRare | rare word | hl-SpellRare SpellLocal | wrong spelling for selected region | hl-SpellLocal

Searching for Misspellings

To add words to your own word list

Finding suggestions for bad words

• z= For the word under/after the cursor suggest correctly spelled replaced. This may take a long time. Hit CTRL-C when you get bored.
• CTRL-Xs In Insert mode, when the cursor is after a badly spelled word, you can use CTRL-X s to find suggestions. This works like Insert mode completion. Use CTRL-N to use the next suggestion, CTRL-P to go back.

Renumbering Lists

There are at least four ways to number or renumber lists:

Renumbering using perl

  :perl $a=0
  :40,44 perldo s/^\d/++$a/e

Renumbering using Visual Mode

Make a blockwise, visual selection on the first character of each list item: ^<C-V>2j for 2 lines, etc. Insert a 0. at the beginning of these lines: I0. <Esc> Re-select the visual selection (which is now all of the 0s) with gv gvg<C-A> and increment them as a sequence g<C-A>: The entire sequence: ^<C-V>2jI0. <Esc>gvg<C-A>.

Renumbering using Macros

Use <C-A> to increment the line number. Use <C-x> to decrement the line number.

i                         # insert mode
<ctrl-Y><ctrl-Y><ctrl-Y>  # copy the first few characters from the line above
<ESC>                     # back to normal mode

|                         # go back to the start of the line
<ctrl-A>                  # increment the number
j                         # down to the next line
q                         # stop recording
or
k                         # Previous line
^yWjP                     # yank word, next line, Put
^<ctrl-a>j                # begining of line, increment, next line

Now you can play back the recording with @a (the first time; for subsequent times, you can do @@ to repeat the last-executed macro) and it will add a new incremented number to the start of each line.

Renumbering using External Programs

Use :<RANGE>!nl -ba or :%!cat -n commands which will add line numbers to all the lines in RANGE. This is not as useful if RANGE is already numbered

Perl

If vim is compiled with perl support, you can run perl commands at the ex command prompt! To see what version of Perl you have: :perl print $^V or vim --version | grep -i perl. Execute Perl command {cmd} for each line in the [range], with $_ being set to the text of each line in turn, without a trailing <EOL>. Setting $_ will change the text, but note that it is not possible to add or delete lines using this command. The default for [range] is the whole file: “1,$”. Here are some things you can try:

:[range]perld[o] {cmd}
:perl $a=1
:perldo $_ = reverse($_);1
:perl VIM::Msg("hello")
:perl $line = $curbuf->Get(42)

Working with Markdown Tables in Vim

These macros assume a Markdown table in the following format.
1. Header Line
2. Table Description Line
   - Any Easy Way To Create This:
      - Put cursor on Header Line
      - `:.t.` To Duplicate It
      - `:s/[^|]/-/g` To Replace All Non-Pipes With '-'.
3. One Or More Table Lines

Each line must begin and end with the Pipe character (|).

| Header1 | Header2 |
|----|-|
| Col1 Item1 | Col2 Item1 |
| Col1  Item2 |    Col2 Item2 |

After running \ta:

| Header1    | Header2    |
|------------|------------|
| Col1 Item2 | Col2 Item2 |
| Col1 Item1 | Col2 Item1 |

Note that either is a valid Markdown table. The Second example is more readable.

Include the following in your .vimrc.

" \ta Fancier Table Cleanup - sort -r
function! CleanMDTable()
   normal! :set cmdheight=4
   normal! vip:s@[-]\{5,\}@-----@ge
   normal! vip:s@\s\+@ @ge
   ?|---?+1,/^$/!sort -r
   ?|---
   normal! vip
   '<,'>!column -c 200 -t -W 4 -s '|' -o '|'
   normal! vip
   ?----?s![^|-]!-!g
   nohlsearch
   normal! 
   normal! :set cmdheight=1
endfunction
map <silent> <Leader>ta :call CleanMDTable()<CR>
" \tc TitleCase Line
nnoremap <silent> <Leader>tc :.s/\([- ][a-z]\)/\U\1/ge<CR>:.s/^\([a-z]\)/\U\1/e<CR>:noh<CR>
" \tf Format Paragraph
map <Leader>tf vip<CR>!fmt -u<CR>`{<CR>
" \tr Renumber Paragraph
map <Leader>tr :perl $a=0<CR>vip:perldo s/^\d+/++$a/e<CR>
" \ts Toggle Spelling
map <silent><Leader>ts :setlocal spell!<CR>
" \tx Pretty Print Markdown-Style Tables, No Sort
map <Leader>tx vip:s@[-]\{5,\}@----@ge<CR>vip:s/\s\+/ /ge<CR>vip!column -c 200 -t -s "\|" -o "\|"<CR>/----<CR>:.s/[^\|]/-/g<CR>:noh<CR>
" \tw TitleCase Word
nnoremap <silent><Leader>tw gUllguwb

" \xs trims spaces at end of line
nnoremap <silent><Leader>xs :%s/\s\+$//e<CR>