VIM: How to paste in some begin lines

Question

I want to paste the same text at the start of some lines of my document all at once.

[For example]
-Before-

'1','North America'
'2','South America'
'3','Europe'

-After-

INSERT INTO 'continent' ('id' ,'name') VALUES ('1','North America'
INSERT INTO 'continent' ('id' ,'name') VALUES ('2','South America'
INSERT INTO 'continent' ('id' ,'name') VALUES ('3','Europe'

Please tell me if there is a way of doing this.
Thanks!

Deleted my answer, since the linked duplicate is an excellent illustration. — Michael Berkowski, Mar 06 '12 at 16:14

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 06 '12 at 16:13

Go to the first character, CTRL-V (switch to visual blockwise selection), jj (to move down two lines), I (capital i, switches to insert before block), and then CTRL-R" to instert contents of the default register. When you hit ESCAPE you will see that the text that you've inserted appears on all other lines.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '12 at 16:15

Try this:

:%s/^/INSERT INTO 'continent' ('id' ,'name') VALUES (/

% stands for the whole document. You can replace the % with range. For example

 :1,4s/^/INSERT INTO 'continent' ('id' ,'name') VALUES (/

will insert only at the begining of the first 4 lines.

VIM: How to paste in some begin lines

2 Answers2