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1 *usr_12.txt* For Vim version 7.0aa. Last change: 2004 May 01
2
3 VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar
4
5 Clever tricks
6
7
8 By combining several commands you can make Vim do nearly everything. In this
9 chapter a number of useful combinations will be presented. This uses the
10 commands introduced in the previous chapters and a few more.
11
12 |12.1| Replace a word
13 |12.2| Change "Last, First" to "First Last"
14 |12.3| Sort a list
15 |12.4| Reverse line order
16 |12.5| Count words
17 |12.6| Find a man page
18 |12.7| Trim blanks
19 |12.8| Find where a word is used
20
21 Next chapter: |usr_20.txt| Typing command-line commands quickly
22 Previous chapter: |usr_11.txt| Recovering from a crash
23 Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|
24
25 ==============================================================================
26 *12.1* Replace a word
27
28 The substitute command can be used to replace all occurrences of a word with
29 another word: >
30
31 :%s/four/4/g
32
33 The "%" range means to replace in all lines. The "g" flag at the end causes
34 all words in a line to be replaced.
35 This will not do the right thing if your file also contains "thirtyfour".
36 It would be replaced with "thirty4". To avoid this, use the "\<" item to
37 match the start of a word: >
38
39 :%s/\<four/4/g
40
41 Obviously, this still goes wrong on "fourty". Use "\>" to match the end of a
42 word: >
43
44 :%s/\<four\>/4/g
45
46 If you are programming, you might want to replace "four" in comments, but not
47 in the code. Since this is difficult to specify, add the "c" flag to have the
48 substitute command prompt you for each replacement: >
49
50
51 :%s/\<four\>/4/gc
52
53
54 REPLACING IN SEVERAL FILES
55
56 Suppose you want to replace a word in more than one file. You could edit each
57 file and type the command manually. It's a lot faster to use record and
58 playback.
59 Let's assume you have a directory with C++ files, all ending in ".cpp".
60 There is a function called "GetResp" that you want to rename to "GetAnswer".
61
62 vim *.cpp Start Vim, defining the argument list to
63 contain all the C++ files. You are now in the
64 first file.
65 qq Start recording into the q register
66 :%s/\<GetResp\>/GetAnswer/g
67 Do the replacements in the first file.
68 :wnext Write this file and move to the next one.
69 q Stop recording.
70 @q Execute the q register. This will replay the
71 substitution and ":wnext". You can verify
72 that this doesn't produce an error message.
73 999@q Execute the q register on the remaining files.
74
75 At the last file you will get an error message, because ":wnext" cannot move
76 to the next file. This stops the execution, and everything is done.
77
78 Note:
79 When playing back a recorded sequence, an error stops the execution.
80 Therefore, make sure you don't get an error message when recording.
81
82 There is one catch: If one of the .cpp files does not contain the word
83 "GetResp", you will get an error and replacing will stop. To avoid this, add
84 the "e" flag to the substitute command: >
85
86 :%s/\<GetResp\>/GetAnswer/ge
87
88 The "e" flag tells ":substitute" that not finding a match is not an error.
89
90 ==============================================================================
91 *12.2* Change "Last, First" to "First Last"
92
93 You have a list of names in this form:
94
95 Doe, John ~
96 Smith, Peter ~
97
98 You want to change that to:
99
100 John Doe ~
101 Peter Smith ~
102
103 This can be done with just one command: >
104
105 :%s/\([^,]*\), \(.*\)/\2 \1/
106
107 Let's break this down in parts. Obviously it starts with a substitute
108 command. The "%" is the line range, which stands for the whole file. Thus
109 the substitution is done in every line in the file.
110 The arguments for the substitute command are "/from/to/". The slashes
111 separate the "from" pattern and the "to" string. This is what the "from"
112 pattern contains:
113 \([^,]*\), \(.*\) ~
114
115 The first part between \( \) matches "Last" \( \)
116 match anything but a comma [^,]
117 any number of times *
118 matches ", " literally ,
119 The second part between \( \) matches "First" \( \)
120 any character .
121 any number of times *
122
123 In the "to" part we have "\2" and "\1". These are called backreferences.
124 They refer to the text matched by the "\( \)" parts in the pattern. "\2"
125 refers to the text matched by the second "\( \)", which is the "First" name.
126 "\1" refers to the first "\( \)", which is the "Last" name.
127 You can use up to nine backreferences in the "to" part of a substitute
128 command. "\0" stands for the whole matched pattern. There are a few more
129 special items in a substitute command, see |sub-replace-special|.
130
131 ==============================================================================
132 *12.3* Sort a list
133
134 In a Makefile you often have a list of files. For example:
135
136 OBJS = \ ~
137 version.o \ ~
138 pch.o \ ~
139 getopt.o \ ~
140 util.o \ ~
141 getopt1.o \ ~
142 inp.o \ ~
143 patch.o \ ~
144 backup.o ~
145
146 To sort this list, filter the text through the external sort command: >
147
148 /^OBJS
149 j
150 :.,/^$/-1!sort
151
152 This goes to the first line, where "OBJS" is the first thing in the line.
153 Then it goes one line down and filters the lines until the next empty line.
154 You could also select the lines in Visual mode and then use "!sort". That's
155 easier to type, but more work when there are many lines.
156 The result is this:
157
158 OBJS = \ ~
159 backup.o ~
160 getopt.o \ ~
161 getopt1.o \ ~
162 inp.o \ ~
163 patch.o \ ~
164 pch.o \ ~
165 util.o \ ~
166 version.o \ ~
167
168
169 Notice that a backslash at the end of each line is used to indicate the line
170 continues. After sorting, this is wrong! The "backup.o" line that was at
171 the end didn't have a backslash. Now that it sorts to another place, it
172 must have a backslash.
173 The simplest solution is to add the backslash with "A \<Esc>". You can
174 keep the backslash in the last line, if you make sure an empty line comes
175 after it. That way you don't have this problem again.
176
177 ==============================================================================
178 *12.4* Reverse line order
179
180 The |:global| command can be combined with the |:move| command to move all the
181 lines before the first line, resulting in a reversed file. The command is: >
182
183 :global/^/m 0
184
185 Abbreviated: >
186
187 :g/^/m 0
188
189 The "^" regular expression matches the beginning of the line (even if the line
190 is blank). The |:move| command moves the matching line to after the mythical
191 zeroth line, so the current matching line becomes the first line of the file.
192 As the |:global| command is not confused by the changing line numbering,
193 |:global| proceeds to match all remaining lines of the file and puts each as
194 the first.
195
196 This also works on a range of lines. First move to above the first line and
197 mark it with "mt". Then move the cursor to the last line in the range and
198 type: >
199
200 :'t+1,.g/^/m 't
201
202 ==============================================================================
203 *12.5* Count words
204
205 Sometimes you have to write a text with a maximum number of words. Vim can
206 count the words for you.
207 When the whole file is what you want to count the words in, use this
208 command: >
209
210 g CTRL-G
211
212 Do not type a space after the g, this is just used here to make the command
213 easy to read.
214 The output looks like this:
215
216 Col 1 of 0; Line 141 of 157; Word 748 of 774; Byte 4489 of 4976 ~
217
218 You can see on which word you are (748), and the total number of words in the
219 file (774).
220
221 When the text is only part of a file, you could move to the start of the text,
222 type "g CTRL-G", move to the end of the text, type "g CTRL-G" again, and then
223 use your brain to compute the difference in the word position. That's a good
224 exercise, but there is an easier way. With Visual mode, select the text you
225 want to count words in. Then type g CTRL-G. The result:
226
227 Selected 5 of 293 Lines; 70 of 1884 Words; 359 of 10928 Bytes ~
228
229 For other ways to count words, lines and other items, see |count-items|.
230
231 ==============================================================================
232 *12.6* Find a man page *find-manpage*
233
234 While editing a shell script or C program, you are using a command or function
235 that you want to find the man page for (this is on Unix). Let's first use a
236 simple way: Move the cursor to the word you want to find help on and press >
237
238 K
239
240 Vim will run the external "man" program on the word. If the man page is
241 found, it is displayed. This uses the normal pager to scroll through the text
242 (mostly the "more" program). When you get to the end pressing <Enter> will
243 get you back into Vim.
244
245 A disadvantage is that you can't see the man page and the text you are working
246 on at the same time. There is a trick to make the man page appear in a Vim
247 window. First, load the man filetype plugin: >
248
249 :runtime! ftplugin/man.vim
250
251 Put this command in your vimrc file if you intend to do this often. Now you
252 can use the ":Man" command to open a window on a man page: >
253
254 :Man csh
255
256 You can scroll around and the text is highlighted. This allows you to find
257 the help you were looking for. Use CTRL-W w to jump to the window with the
258 text you were working on.
259 To find a man page in a specific section, put the section number first.
260 For example, to look in section 3 for "echo": >
261
262 :Man 3 echo
263
264 To jump to another man page, which is in the text with the typical form
265 "word(1)", press CTRL-] on it. Further ":Man" commands will use the same
266 window.
267
268 To display a man page for the word under the cursor, use this: >
269
270 \K
271
272 (If you redefined the <Leader>, use it instead of the backslash).
273 For example, you want to know the return value of "strstr()" while editing
274 this line:
275
276 if (strstr(input, "aap") == ) ~
277
278 Move the cursor to somewhere on "strstr" and type "\K". A window will open
279 to display the man page for strstr().
280
281 ==============================================================================
282 *12.7* Trim blanks
283
284 Some people find spaces and tabs at the end of a line useless, wasteful, and
285 ugly. To remove whitespace at the end of every line, execute the following
286 command: >
287
288 :%s/\s\+$//
289
290 The line range "%" is used, thus this works on the whole file. The pattern
291 that the ":substitute" command matches with is "\s\+$". This finds white
292 space characters (\s), 1 or more of them (\+), before the end-of-line ($).
293 Later will be explained how you write patterns like this |usr_27.txt|.
294 The "to" part of the substitute command is empty: "//". Thus it replaces
295 with nothing, effectively deleting the matched white space.
296
297 Another wasteful use of spaces is placing them before a Tab. Often these can
298 be deleted without changing the amount of white space. But not always!
299 Therefore, you can best do this manually. Use this search command: >
300
301 /
302
303 You cannot see it, but there is a space before a tab in this command. Thus
304 it's "/<Space><Tab>". Now use "x" to delete the space and check that the
305 amount of white space doesn't change. You might have to insert a Tab if it
306 does change. Type "n" to find the next match. Repeat this until no more
307 matches can be found.
308
309 ==============================================================================
310 *12.8* Find where a word is used
311
312 If you are a UNIX user, you can use a combination of Vim and the grep command
313 to edit all the files that contain a given word. This is extremely useful if
314 you are working on a program and want to view or edit all the files that
315 contain a specific variable.
316 For example, suppose you want to edit all the C program files that contain
317 the word "frame_counter". To do this you use the command: >
318
319 vim `grep -l frame_counter *.c`
320
321 Let's look at this command in detail. The grep command searches through a set
322 of files for a given word. Because the -l argument is specified, the command
323 will only list the files containing the word and not print the matching lines.
324 The word it is searching for is "frame_counter". Actually, this can be any
325 regular expression. (Note: What grep uses for regular expressions is not
326 exactly the same as what Vim uses.)
327 The entire command is enclosed in backticks (`). This tells the UNIX shell
328 to run this command and pretend that the results were typed on the command
329 line. So what happens is that the grep command is run and produces a list of
330 files, these files are put on the Vim command line. This results in Vim
331 editing the file list that is the output of grep. You can then use commands
332 like ":next" and ":first" to browse through the files.
333
334
335 FINDING EACH LINE
336
337 The above command only finds the files in which the word is found. You still
338 have to find the word within the files.
339 Vim has a built-in command that you can use to search a set of files for a
340 given string. If you want to find all occurrences of "error_string" in all C
341 program files, for example, enter the following command: >
342
343 :grep error_string *.c
344
345 This causes Vim to search for the string "error_string" in all the specified
346 files (*.c). The editor will now open the first file where a match is found
347 and position the cursor on the first matching line. To go to the next
348 matching line (no matter in what it is file), use the ":cnext" command. To go
349 to the previous match, use the ":cprev" command. Use ":clist" to see all the
350 matches and where they are.
351 The ":grep" command uses the external commands grep (on Unix) or findstr
352 (on Windows). You can change this by setting the option 'grepprg'.
353
354 ==============================================================================
355
356 Next chapter: |usr_20.txt| Typing command-line commands quickly
357
358 Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: