How to comment a line directly from bash using vim?

Question

What I usually do from bash/vim ... is

My file is /usr/local/etc/php/7.0/conf.d/ext-xdebug.ini and the initial content is

[xdebug]
zend_extension="/usr/local/opt/php70-xdebug/xdebug.so"

I want to run a command that in one statement adds ; at the beginning of the second line.

[xdebug]
zend_extension="/usr/local/opt/php70-xdebug/xdebug.so"

Is it possible to do this directly from bash?

this is trivial to do with command line text processing tools like sed.. for ex: sed -i '2 s/^/;/' file to add ; at beginning of 2nd line and sed -i '2 s/.//' file to delete first character from 2nd line... see this for more such examples and this for use of -i flag for different sed versions — Sundeep, Oct 28 '16 at 13:57
also, I think you missed out adding ; in question to show before and after example — Sundeep, Oct 28 '16 at 13:58

statox · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-28 09:12:08Z

5

You can use:

vim +'normal! 2GI;' +'x' path/to/your/file

The + parameter allows to execute a command after opening the buffer.

The first command normal! 2GI; goes to line 2 and add a ; at the beginning of the line

The second command saves and exit.

Bonus point: To uncomment the same line:

vim +'normal! 2G^x' +'x' path/to/your/file

answered Oct 28 '16 at 9:12

statox♦

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What exactly second param "+'x'" means? – sensorario Oct 28 '16 at 9:14
1

@sensorario See :h :x. The command :x is the equivalent of the command :wq i.e. save and exit. – statox♦ Oct 28 '16 at 9:16
:x is not fully equivalent to :wq as it does not write when there are no changes (timestamp is preserved) – Andrey R Oct 28 '16 at 13:55

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