Mastering Vim: Undo, redo and repeat – confirm blog

January 25, 2023January 25, 2023 by Matt

This ti me I’ll reveal you how to reverse, renovate and duplicate things in Vim.
With simply a couple of easy keystrokes you can enhance your day-to-day workflow.

Reverse

Reverse things in Vim is rather simple, as you can simply push the u type in regular command mode.

The u secret will browse through the history of your modifications. This indicates everytime you push it, another modification will be reversed. You can likewise utilize a quantifier, such as 3u ( reverse the last 3 modifications).

Please keep in mind that the u is lowercase. If you utilize an uppercase U rather, the entire last line you have actually customized will be gone back to its initial state. Nevertheless, U will not browse through the reverse history, however rather of it produce a brand-new reverse history entry.

Redo & & easy duplicating

When we speak about “renovate” things, we need to vary in between the following 2 essential strokes in regular command mode:

. will duplicate the last modification you have actually done
Ctrl-r will renovate (go back) a previous reversed modification

Here are some examples for both commands.

Let’s state you’re changing to place mode ( i), press the comma (,) essential and after that return to regular mode ( ESC). You simply placed a comma under your cursor– that’s your modification! Now you go a line down and wish to do the exact same thing. At this moment, you can merely push the . essential, and the last modification (insert a comma) is duplicated.

Now change to a various example where you did some modifications you wish to reverse. So you press u a number of times, up until you recognize you did one reverse excessive. What you wish to do now is renovate your reverse modification, and this is where you ‘d utilize Ctrl-r

Macros

We currently understand the repeat (aka .) command, our helpful little assistant. However what about more complex circumstances, where you wish to duplicate a series of commands rather of just one? Well, this is where Vim macros are available in location.

Recording macros

A macro is merely a series of commands. Macros can be taped by utilizing the following actions:

Very first press the q secret (macro secret)
Select the macro register by pushing among the a-z secrets
Enter your (made complex) Vim commands you wish to tape-record
Lastly push the q secret once again

Now you have actually taped your series of commands in a macro and kept it in a register. Whenever you begin taping a macro, you must see something like this on the bottom margin of Vim:

 taping @q

Let’s state I wish to do this:

Include the letter X right prior to the last character of the existing line
Go to the next line
Dive to the very first character

I ‘d utilize the following essential mix:

 qq$ iX<< ESC>> j ^ q

qq is beginning the macro recording on register q
$ is leaping to the last character in line
i is changing to insert mode
X is the letter X
<< ESC>> is changing back to regular mode
j ( or additionally down cursor) is leaping to the next line
^ is leaping to the very first character in line
q is stopping the macro recording

Playing macros

Naturally a macro is just worth something if you can play/ repeat it. This is where the @ secret enters into location.

To play your macro merely push the @ essential, followed by the register you have actually picked prior to. In the example above, you can see my register was q, so I merely duplicate it by pushing @q You can likewise define a qunatifier, such as 3@q ( repeat macro q 3 times).