A version of `w` which skips to the next underscore

Question

I frequently work with code style which asks that many non-class symbols use snake_case -- Python, Ruby, and C especially. If I have a symbol like longfirstpart_longsecondpart, I'd like to be able to jump to the underscore in the middle à la w skipping to the next word.

Is there a built-in shortcut or init.vim variable for this kind of behaviour?

Answer 1

This can be done very easily with the iskeyword option. From :h iskeyword

                        *'iskeyword'* *'isk'*
'iskeyword' 'isk'   string (Vim default for MS-DOS and Win32:
                        "@,48-57,_,128-167,224-235"
                   otherwise:  "@,48-57,_,192-255"
                Vi default: "@,48-57,_")
            local to buffer
            {not in Vi}
    Keywords are used in searching and recognizing with many commands:
    "w", "*", "[i", etc.  It is also used for "\k" in a |pattern|.  See
    'isfname' for a description of the format of this option.  For C
    programs you could use "a-z,A-Z,48-57,_,.,-,>".
    For a help file it is set to all non-blank printable characters except
    '*', '"' and '|' (so that CTRL-] on a command finds the help for that
    command).

So add this to your .vimrc:

set iskeyword-=_

and that should work for you.

Answer 2

I would simply use f_, but that means I know I want to move to the underscore instead of abstractly to the next word.

You can repeat the last f with ;, and both f and ; accept a count.

Answer 3

There are exist two plugins for the improving experience to move through camelCase and snake_case.

1. The first one is he camelcasemotion plugin, defining the additional commands, normally prepended with a comma. But this one is old and unmaintained for many years.

2. The second one is actively developed, and uses completely different approach - vim-wordmotion. It redefines the word boundaries, so all default commands will work as is, just within new rules:

CamelCaseACRONYMWords_underscore1234
w--->w-->w----->w---->w-------->w->w
e-->e-->e----->e--->e--------->e-->e
b<---b<--b<-----b<----b<--------b<-b