Suppose a range of lines contains function calls in some programming language:
i = foo(a, 42, 1)
j = bar(b, c, 100, 2) # this is a comment (well, duh)
bazbar(etc, 3)
You want to edit the last parameter in each function call -- change it to 'hello'. I have two ways of approaching this: macros (interactive) or :norm (less interactive).
1. Put your cursor on the first byte in the first line, type qq to record a macro of your change, q to finish. Select the rest of the lines in visual line mode and type :'<,'>norm @q to run the macro on each of the remaining lines.
2. Select the lines in visual line mode and type, for instance,
:'<,'>norm %F,ws'hello'
This is the "non-interactive" version of the above since the macro keystrokes are given directly to :normal. Pro: ability to undo keystrokes unlike when recording a macro. Con: cannot actually see the effect of the keystrokes (but with practice, this is not a problem).
(Note that colon in visual mode automatically inserts the :'<,'> so you only have to type :norm ...)
I find the declarative nature of regexes/:s to be too restrictive -- I much prefer the operational nature of macros/:normal, since that lets me make the change I want directly, without me having to phrase the change as a regular expression.
I could also use CTRL-A in normal mode to increment the last argument in each line:
:'<,'>norm %b^A
(where ^A is the literal, typed CTRL-V CTRL-A)
I feel like a wizard whenever I use :normal in a non-trivial manner.
I normally include a move to next line part in my macro and then guess at how many times to run it (20@q, repeat until I get it right). It's actually the main reason I often don't bother using macros.
@@ applies the previously applied macro, so after applying the macro (including the move to next line, but see below too) you can you just hold down @ and quickly go through as many lines as you need. If you overshoot, you can just press u a few times.
Another tip: when you forget to add the move to next line to your macro, you don't have to start over. You can append to a macro, just use the upper-case register name instead. So to append a down and move to beginning of line to macro 'a', you'd type qAj0
Using :norm, this transformation can be achieved in the following way:
:'<,'>norm I{^[eldedecw, "^[A"},
(where ^[ is a literal escape, typed CTRL-V ESC.)
Anecdotally, it is faster for me to type up such a line than an equivalent regular expression, since I use vi normal mode commands much more than regular expressions.
I would have piped this through awk, but this is probably better done with macros. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I will definitely give macros a try.
You need to know how dw, de, cw, ce relate to each other, when the cursor is on a token character vs. a whitespace character, and so on, in order for this to be truly useful -- but luckily, ordinary practice with those commands in Vim can lead to an efficient internal idea of how it works. "You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead."
this is awesome, can you please suggest some resources for me, a long-time basic user of vim, ( know a lot of commands for actions, but not the underlying relationships?
Something i've been using more lately is Ctrl-R + Register. Great for inserting text in command mode. For instance, you can do this to insert your recorded macro (if it's in register q) as a norm command:
:norm Ctrl-R q
I would have almost simply started recording a macro, convert the first one using as many idempotent normal mode commands in place of insert mode commands as possible, and simply replayed it. Thanks for the idea.
As a side note, I love how Vim is basically a functional programming language for text editing.
Well you're leaving the middle columns there, then on your first keystrokes it would be acutally {+down+left as Sublime does not put cursor back at beginning of line when going down. In all I used 26 keystrokes in Sublime, and 27 in Vim. Also, if you understand Vim's vocabulary, the "cognitive overhead" is, as you put it "far less" in Vim's favor. IMO.
I am sorry, but I don't know any resources... I have collected a few things on the following page: http://users-cs.au.dk/rav/vim/
Basically, I achieved my wizard-level C++, Vim and Git knowledge during my three years as a part-time student programmer in the basic research center MADALGO. I took the time to study the documentation (respectively the C++11 draft, :help and the git man pages) whenever I was curious. For Vim in particular, I made sure to eliminate all repeated keysmashing in my daily workflow, which "unfortunately" required me to learn about macro wizardry.
My only advice is to keep practicing, to keep trying to spot inefficiencies in your own workflows, and to actively eliminate these inefficiencies by studying the Vim help pages.
Over the years, I've got a lot of mileage out of "Learning the vi and vim Editors" from O'Reilly, and web pages like http://www.lagmonster.org/docs/vi.html. Practicing and testing compositions based on what you learn from these will go a _long_ way. Try new ways to move (by screens, by sentences, by blocks), test using your buffers, experiment w/ transforms. Then, one day, you realize you're pretty good with vi.
I usually use the asterisk to search for the token under the cursor, edit the sought token using cw and then n.n.n.n. to replace later occurrences. I don't see how the mapping makes this more efficient.
Interesting. Can you please elaborate more on this?