(Neo)Vim Tricks 笔记

(Neo)Vim Trick | Using Macros

Vim 编辑器中「宏」的使用

Posted by Will on October 26, 2021

Macro is probably one of those hidden gems of (Neo)Vim, but most beginners don’t know the use cases although they know it’s powerful.

Recording a macro is a great way to perform a one-time task, or to get things done quickly when you don’t want to mess with Vim script or mappings, or if you do not yet know how to do it more elegantly.

Say we need to turn this

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pellentesque ornare suscipit. Nam diam neque, viverra non dictum at, tempor ut
neque. Mauris feugiat convallis lacus, ac tincidunt magna consequat eu.
Vestibulum eget nibh odio. Aliquam tristique sapien id metus scelerisque,
a finibus mauris iaculis. Vestibulum ac tempus arcu. Cras.

… into this.

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque</p>
<p>pellentesque ornare suscipit. Nam diam neque, viverra non dictum at, tempor ut</p>
<p>neque. Mauris feugiat convallis lacus, ac tincidunt magna consequat eu.</p>
<p>Vestibulum eget nibh odio. Aliquam tristique sapien id metus scelerisque,</p>
<p>a finibus mauris iaculis. Vestibulum ac tempus arcu. Cras.</p>

Steps

Put cursor on the first letter of the first line
Hit qi to start recording into register i
Make changes to the line (vLS<p>j in this case)
Hit q to stop recording
Hit @i to use the macro

Tips

Macros are persisted across Vim sessions
Hit @@ to use last macro
Prepend a number to repeat multiple times
Append @i to recursively apply until the end of buffer
You can manually edit the content of a macro like with any register

Happy Vimming!