Is there a shortcut to reuse the last operator+motion without repeating the whole change?

Question

Many times I find my self running ciw or c2W but with different text. Like ciwnewtext<esc> and then ciwanothertext<esc>. The dot command . will repeat the whole change (it does not allow me to specify the text).

For simple motions like iw it does not bother my much but sometimes I use more complex motion that I would like to reuse right away. Is there any way to accomplish that?

Answer 1

If you movement involves searches on the current line (:help f or :help t) you could repeat that movements with ; and ,:

cfxnewtext
c;anothertext

For regular searches you could use n:

c/xyz<enter>newtext
cnanothertext

If you are using a combination of searches and movements, like search for pattern1 and then jump some sentences/words, you could record a macro:

qq<complex movements>c2w<c-o>q

The i_CTRL-O allows you to finish the macro while in insert mode. Then you can play the macro using @q (or @@) and you will end in insert mode with the old text already removed.