How to use Vim to do multiple line edit

Question

I have text like this:

    w ky,
    wyz,
    wyy,
    wj,
    w w,

and I want to change it to this:

    "w ky",
    "wyz",
    "wyy",
    "wj",
    "w w",

I do it now using:

record a macro to insert double quota in one line, then go to next line qa0wi"$i"j
then just type 4@a

Yes, it works, but is there an easier way to do this?

The first result when typing your question into google https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11784408/vim-multiline-editing-like-in-sublimetext — J. Knight, May 25 '17 at 04:24
@J.Knight but that answer just work when every line is the same length — roger, May 25 '17 at 05:07
instead of `0w`, you can use `^`... not sure what you mean by easy.. but you can also use substitution... `s/\S[^,]*/"&"/` — Sundeep, May 25 '17 at 05:22
@Sundeep I know `ggCtrl-vG$` will select all word, but can I select every line just until last comma? — roger, May 25 '17 at 05:42
Just to add to @Sundeep's comment. `:%s/\S[^,]*/"&"/g` will replace it all at once — sudo bangbang, May 25 '17 at 05:42
@sudobangbang yeah.. and `5V:s/\S[^,]*/"&"/` for selective lines only or any other address range as required.. — Sundeep, May 25 '17 at 05:45
@roger your given sample has only single `,` so the regex solution should work same as your macro — Sundeep, May 25 '17 at 05:47

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 25 '17 at 15:46

There is an easier way. You can use the norm command. I would recommend this:

Visually select all of the lines
Type
```
:norm I"<C-v><esc>$i"<cr>
```
When you actually type this (before hitting enter), the text that should be shown in your command line is:
```
:'<,'>norm I"^[$i"
```

The norm command tells vim to simulate a set of normal mode keystrokes on certain lines. In this case, the command is:

:'<,'>      " On every line in the visual selection:
norm        " Do the following as if typed in normal mode:
I"<esc>$i"  " Insert an '"', escape, then insert a '"' at the end (before the comma)

You can also do this without using a visual selection, by typing <n>:norm ..., and the command will apply the current n lines. (the current line and the next n-1 lines)

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 26 '17 at 02:19

Doing a "very magic search \v" we can search...

\v(\w ?\w+),
\v ........... starts very magic search mode
(  ........... starts group one
\w ........... any word
 ? ........... optional space
+  ........... one or more
)  ........... ends group one

After testing the search we can pass into our command or use the last search by placing two slashes on the search pattern

%s/\v(\w ?\w+),/"\1",/g
%s//"\1",/g

everything matched on group one can be referred by \1.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 26 '17 at 02:20

0

Do a basic multi-line edit at the front then do a string replace on , with ",.

edited May 26 '17 at 02:20

the Tin Man

158,662
42
215
303

answered May 25 '17 at 22:59

J. Knight

131
9

How to use Vim to do multiple line edit

3 Answers3