How to append <cr> to a register from a yank?

Question

I am actually stuck level 10 at vim-adventures, but this question concerns vim in general.

I have a new file with this content:

99 bottles of beer    

If I yank the line with "aY I get 99 bottles of beer<cr>, if I do "a0y$ I get 99 bottles of beer without the new line.

The question is how can I just append <cr> that I yank from somewhere into my registers?

Answer 1

One way is to use a capital "A" for the yank command which appends to the register instead of replacing it. So you would need to position your cursor on a blank line and then do "AY.

See :h quote for more info.

Another way to do it would be to run the following command:

:let @a = @a . "\n"

Registers can be address like variables with @ notation.

Answer 2

Another option is to use the setreg() function:

:call setreg('a', "\n", 'a')

With the help of :h setreg():

• The first parameter is the name of the register to modify
• The second one is the string to put into the register
• The third one is optional, if it contains a then the string is appended to the content of the register otherwise it replace the existing content.

Answer 3

There is setreg() method, you can not only modify the value of the register, but also the "mode" see :h setreg(.

you can just convert the char-based selection/yank to line-based selection/yank, without changing the value of @a:

:call setreg('a',@a,'V')

or

:call setreg('a',@a,'l')