Say I have the following
printf(text goes here);
and I select "text goes here" in visual mode...
How do I quickly change it to
printf("text goes here");
This is intended to answer the specific question that you asked. You state that you have visually selected some text and want to surround it with quotes. To do that, run:
:s/\%V\(.*\)\%V/"\1"/
To break that into parts:
:
allows you to enter ex
commands.
s/old/new/
is the usual substitute command.
\%V
is an under-documented atom to mark the beginning of the selected text
\(.*\)
selects everything and save it into selection 1.
The second \%V
signifies the end of the selected text.
The replacement text is everyting that was selected, which is stored in \1
, surrounded by quotes: "\1"
.
This command applies line by line. So, you may get unwanted results if the selected text extends over multiple lines.
printf(text goes here);
becomes printf("text goes her"e);
.
Jul 12, 2014 at 22:50
vim
bug or not. In either case, a simple workaround is to highlight one extra character.
e
is the last character in the selection, then the second %V is not inside the selection and ignores the last e
.
Oct 14, 2015 at 20:11
.
after the second \%V
Oct 14, 2015 at 20:15
You should research more. What Vim command(s) can be used to quote/unquote words?
Quoting:
surround.vim is going to be your easiest answer. If you are truly set against using it, here are some examples for what you can do. Not necessarily the most efficient, but that's why surround.vim was written.
- Quote a word, using single quotes
ciw'Ctrl+r"'
ciw
- Delete the word the cursor is on, and end up in insert mode.'
- add the first quote.Ctrl+r"
- Insert the contents of the"
register, aka the last yank/delete.'
- add the closing quote.- Unquote a word that's enclosed in single quotes
di'hPl2x
di'
- Delete the word enclosed by single quotes.hP
- Move the cursor left one place (on top of the opening quote) and put the just deleted text before the quote.l
- Move the cursor right one place (on top of the opening quote).2x
- Delete the two quotes.- Change single quotes to double quotes
va':s/\%V'\%V/"/g
va'
- Visually select the quoted word and the quotes.:s/
- Start a replacement.\%V'\%V
- Only match single quotes that are within the visually selected region./"/g
- Replace them all with double quotes.
The command sequence cw""<ESC>P
is the close thing that can do a surrounding of text and works by cutting the word (string of alphanumeric characters: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, including the _ [underscore]), then inserts the text ""
, and hitting the escape key (<ESC>
to escape out of insert mode one then is able to paste before the cursor. Thus the command breaks down to:
c
- cut into register
w
- regex match \w
""
- insert two "
characters at current cursor position
<ESC>
- VIM shorthand for hitting the escape key. In this context, return to command mode
P
- paste current register
However, in the case of longer sets of strings on the current line that one wishes to surround, one would need to use substitution regex commands with a capture group such as:
:s/\(\w\+\)/"\1"/g
This command stores the resulting matched regex captured as group '1' and preform substitution to insert the group's contents inside your quotes. Thus, given the text:
fubar: 1
Becomes:
"fubar": 1
The vim intro help file is one of the best resources for anyone, along with the :help
command.
Here's how I quoted a few of my visual selections:
While in VISUAL mode select the text you need to quote, then press qqc""<Esc>Pq
qq
begins recording your actions into record qc
puts selected text in a register and switches to INPUT mode""
puts symbols you need to enclose the text with<Esc>
switches to NORMAL modeP
puts the text from the register in the cursor position, in-between quotesq
denotes the end of actions recordingNow, whithin the same session, you will be able to quote any visual block by just typing @q
, which playbacks our previosly recorded actions
???
After using @q
once you will be able issue @@
(repeat previous action) to quote subsequent visual selections
Don't use visual mode. Simply change the text in the parens to "", and then paste the deleted text in between. ci)""<Esc>P
If you want to use visual mode, it works the same, you just drop the 'i)' part: c""<Esc>P
(<Esc> means hit the escape key)
Using the plugin surround.vim
which seems to be enabled by default in modern Vim installations (at least in Ubuntu 20):
S"
to surround the text with double quotesTaken from Christian Ciupitu's excellent comment which is unfortunately buried down under the last question.
:s/\(\%V\(.*\)\%V.\)/"\1"/
Based on the other answers, %V
matches up to one character before the end of the selection. So an extra char matching is included.
The solution using vim-surround plugin https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround
ysiw"
I use surround.vim
cs"' or cs'" -> change surroundings <from> - <to>
Surround.vim is all about "surroundings": parentheses, brackets, quotes, XML tags, and more. The plugin provides mappings to easily delete, change and add such surroundings in pairs.
:s/\%V\(.*\)\%V/"\1"/