Insert a text selected via visual block

Question

I'm facing a behavior that I find unatural when trying to paste a block of text selected with visual block mode (<C-v>): I can't insert it between two lines without messing with the already existing line.

Here's an example:

If I have this file

abc
def
hij
klm

This is a text
on several lines
and this is another line

Let's say I want to put the first letters of each of the 4 first lines between the 2 others lines of text.

• First I'll select the 4 letters: <C-v> 3j y
• Then I put my cursor on the o of the last line
• Finally I put my letters before my cursor with P

The result I get is:

This is a text
aon several lines
dand this is another line
g
j

Where as what I expected was

this is a text 
a
d
g
j
on several lines
and this is another line

So it means that each time I want to past a block this way I have to insert the corresponding number of empty lines before I past which is pretty unatural in my opinion.

I found a vim tip suggesting to use 1vp to select a corresponding number of lines before pasting but that allows a replacement not an insertion of the block.

So my question is: What is the good way to insert a visually selecting block between two existing lines?

Also I once saw a plugin (which I can't remember the name) which "improved" visual block mode, but I'd like not to add a plugin just to enable this behavior.

Answer 1

That plugin you're referring to might be my UnconditionalPaste plugin, which provides (among many related other commands) the exact glp (force linewise paste) command you're looking for here.

As its author, I surely think the plugin provides very helpful functionality that warrants installing it, but you can achieve the same via a simple built-in command. After yanking, execute:

:call setreg('', '', 'ac')

Then paste with P. This changes the type of the default register from blockwise to characterwise. (As there's no setregtype() function, it does this by appending (a) nothing ('') to the register.)

The setreg() approach also works for other such conversions (e.g. characterwise to linewise with 'al' parameter.)

For your particular example, there's an even shorter (but less general) way:

:put!

will always paste in new lines.

Answer 2

You can get the behavior you want with: OCtrl+R".

Ctrl+R in Insert mode pastes a register -- in this case, the default " register. Since you're in Insert mode, it ignores the block-ness of the buffer.

Answer 3

The plugin tpope/vim-unimpaired also comes with some useful linewise paste mappings:

PASTING                                         *unimpaired-pasting*

These are experimental:

*>p*    Paste after linewise, increasing indent.
*>P*    Paste before linewise, increasing indent.
*<p*    Paste after linewise, decreasing indent.
*<P*    Paste before linewise, decreasing indent.
*=p*    Paste after linewise, reindenting.
*=P*    Paste before linewise, reindenting.

|]p|, |[p|, |[P|, and |]P| have also been remapped to force linewise pasting,
while preserving their usual indent matching behavior.

                                                *[op* *]op* *yop*
A toggle has not been provided for 'paste' because the typical use case of
wrapping of a solitary insertion is inefficient:  You toggle twice, but
you only paste once (YOPO).  Instead, press [op, ]op, or yop to invoke |O|,
|o|, or |0||C| with 'paste' already set.  Leaving insert mode sets 'nopaste'
automatically.