Right now I press ce to replace a word. However, this overrides anything that was in my register before. How can I replace a word and go into insert mode after without replacing what was in my register previously?
2 Answers
You need to use the black hole register (see :h quote_):
When writing to this register, nothing happens. This can be used to delete text without affecting the normal registers. When reading from this register, nothing is returned.
Simply do "_ce so that the deleted text will be put into the black hole register and not into your unnamed register.
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Thanks a lot, just as a follow up if I wanted to remap
ceto do this by default would this work:nnoremap ce "_ce– InKnightNov 19, 2017 at 0:01 -
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@InKnight (BLayer makes a really good point) Yes it should work but I think that would be extremely inconvenient and you'd need to make sure that
ttimeoutandttimeoutlenare set properly. I don't recommend such a mapping.– statoxNov 20, 2017 at 8:47
@statox is spot on with the Black hole register.
In fact I use this so much I remapped to my x key in my .vimrc file:
noremap x "_x This allows me to visual select then x it away while maintaining my last yanked text.
If you want to swap text from one place to another check out tommcdo/vim-exchange.
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xis such a common command that remapping it systematically doesn't seem like a good idea (let say I mistypelsitinstead oflistI can't doxpanymore to invert thesand thei). Also if you use it only for visally selected text you should use a mode specific mapping likevnoremap– statoxNov 22, 2017 at 7:55 -
I hadn't used
xpbefore for swapping letter, thank you (had to useXpto work with my current mapping). Thevnoremapwould reduce how much it changes the underlining functionality. In the end, Vim becomes a custom editor based on the .vimrc you have.– ShadoathNov 22, 2017 at 19:29
ciwhas benefits overce. Read the text objects help for more.