How to delete line above/below cursor, but not current line?

Question

Is there a command for deleting line (or n lines) above current one? Above = current not included.

I.e., is there an alternative to dk which doesn't delete current line? Similar to how o/O and p/P work, but with deletion.

Currently, I'm doing kdd, which moves cursor one line up and deletes it. I could do nnoremap <Leader>d kdd and nnoremap <Leader>D jdd-, but having an alternative which doesn't move the cursor seems like a better option. Is there such?

Answer 1

:-d

cuts the line above the current line.

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:-5d

cuts the 5th line above the current line (but moves the cursor).

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:-5,-d

cuts the 5 lines above the current line.

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:+,+5d

cuts the 5 lines below the current line.

Answer 2

If we use the small delete register "-, we can restore the cursor position after deleting above n lines.

For example, d0dgk"-P deletes above 1 line and restores the cursor back where it was.

1. d0 deletes characters from the cursor to the first character of the line. Since 0 is an exclusive motion, the character under the cursor is not deleted. And the deleted characters are put into the small delete regsiter "-.

2. dgk deletes above 1 line. This will leave the current line, because gk is not linewise and exclusive.

3. "-P puts the text from the small delete register "-.

It is a sort of hack. But if you are looking for non-ex commands, consider using it.

Answer 3

EDIT I didn't know the built-in features suggested by @Romainl in his answer: of course the -d and +d method should be prefered as it is way simpler than adding functions to your .vimrc

Maybe adding something like that to your .vimrc could be what you want:

function! DeleteOver()
   let save_cursor = getpos(".")
   normal k
   normal dd
   call setpos(".", save_cursor)
   normal k
endfunction

function! DeleteUnder()
   let save_cursor = getpos(".")
   normal j
   normal dd
   call setpos(".", save_cursor)
endfunction

These functions delete the line under or the line over the current one and go back to the position before the deletion.

For the function DeleteOver() we need to go up one line with normal k after the deletion because the deletion change the number of the original line which doesn't happend with DeleteUnder()

You can also add this to your .vimrc

nnoremap <Leader>d :call DeleteOver()<CR>
nnoremap <Leader>D :call DeleteUnder()<CR>

To create the mappings calling the functions.

Answer 4

Perhaps you'll improve your workflow if don't fear to ... jump :)

Example:

This is where cursor initially is: _.

[Some other stuff you want to keep/skip ...]

I want to delete these lines.
I want to delete these lines.
I want to delete these lines.
I want to delete these lines.
I want to delete these lines.

Your actions (normal mode, cursor is on _): /I want Enter 5dd Ctrl-o. That's it.

Of course, romainl answer is the best if all you want to delete whole lines, and you can count their offset easily (using relative linenumbers for example). The above is a more generic way to "act": go there, using something that counts as a jump: this means you can always jump back, after you modify the text.

For example, if you use absolute line numbers, you can replace the /I want Enter with something like 78gg or 78G to jump directly at that line number.

Answer 5

Based on ms-kim solution I have developed a slightly different variation that saves col postion.

function! DeleteLineAbove()
    if line('.') == 1
        echom "You are at the first line!"
        return
    endif
    let l:colsave = col(".")
    exec  "normal! kdd"
    call cursor(line("."), l:colsave)
endfunction
nnoremap <Leader>k :call DeleteLineAbove()<CR>

OBS: I have also used this post as reference.

Answer 6

If you want to delete duplicate lines throughout the whole file, just do the following:

:g/any part of the string/d

Example:

In command mode

:g/I want to delete/d

If you just want a list of the string(s) initially:

:g/I want to delete/p