Expand visual selection of surrounding code blocks by the dot command

Question

Given the following code in visual mode :

{
  {
    some text
    ^ cursor
  }
}

if I type a{ this will be selected :

{
  { < selection start
    some text
  } < selection end
}

I'd like to repeat the last selection command to expand my selection to include the enclosing brackets with .

{ < selection start
  { 
    some text
  } 
} < selection end

I know I can do it by repeating a{ but I prefer to use .

I have installed vim-repeat

Answer 1

You can fake it with this:

vnoremap <expr> . expand('<cword>') =~# '[(){}\[\]]' ? 'a'.expand('<cword>') : ''

The character under the cursor is used to expand the selection if it's one of the brace characters. Since an expression map is being used, you never leave visual mode, which avoids breaking the normal mode . repeat.

Visual repeat of all text objects

This method gives you a much broader coverage of text objects:

function! s:repeat_block(key) abort
  if a:key ==# '.'
    return get(s:, 'v_repeat_count', '').get(s:, 'v_repeat_key', '')
  endif

  let s:v_repeat_count = v:count1
  let s:v_repeat_key = a:key
  return a:key
endfunction

for k in ['w', 'W', 's', 'p', '[', ']', '(', ')', 'b', '<', '>', 't', '{', '}', 'B', '"', "'", '`']
  execute printf('vnoremap <expr> a%s <sid>repeat_block(''a%s'')', k, k)
  execute printf('vnoremap <expr> i%s <sid>repeat_block(''i%s'')', k, k)
endfor

unlet! k

vnoremap <expr> . <sid>repeat_block('.')

This very lightly uses the same method as vim-repeat and covers both a and i text object prefixes. The side effect of this is that the visual repetition is remembered after you leave and re-enter visual mode. Whether or not that's a good thing is up to you.

Answer 2

There's also a handy plugin for that : smartpairs

• hit vav to select surroundings matching ' / " / ( / { / tags etc.
• expand your selection by typing vav again

Answer 3

Recommendation: do not do it

I strongly recommend not to remap . to extend visual selections. . is meant to repeat the last change.

You break an essential workflow pattern of vim.

Also plugins are designed around this pattern: for example, consider the plugin visualrepeat: its purpose is to make it possible to press . to apply the last change to the current visual selection. If . extends the selection, this plugin does not work as intended. This is only a single example. There are plenty more of them.

If you really need a single key to extend the last applied text object in visual mode, extending , might be a better choice. But I am also not entirely convinced of this choice.

I would recommend to get used to pressing va{a{ or v2a{. It is not that bad.

{ on a French keyboard

If the motivation is the French keyboard layout, I would consider following options

• simply use aB instead of a{
• a% from vim-matchup might also be helpful
• repeat the motions { and } with ; and , with the help of https://github.com/Houl/repmo-vim
• learn the English layout (I've done this myself coming from a German layout; I switch to German layout when writing German text otherwise I use the English layout)

Answer 4

V4j (shift-v) works. I'm not sure repeat will work for you here.

Alternatively, from the top brace, you can simply hit Enter/Return, which will visually select the inner block. Then press Enter/Return again, and it'll expand to the outer braces as well.

Answer 5

By using matchup with textobj-user which provides the % text object for code blocks you can select the first block with vi%. Incrementally selecting outer blocks are done by hitting i%, i%, ... (or a%).