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I haven't been able to find documentation on how vim knows if register contents came from a linewise-selection vs characterwise or blockwise selection.

For example, given the text below:

Hello there my name is Markus
and I went to the store to buy
bananas and motor oil

If I select the first line in linewise visual mode, yank it to a specific register, and save the register contents to a file, the register contents are only what I had selected:

Nothing special about register contents

Now, if I then reload the unnamed register (@") with the contents of /tmp/output.txt, and paste it, it pastes as if I had selected it in characterwise or blockwise visual mode:

enter image description here

I have to assume that vim is tracking how register contents are set, and that if it is done directly from a yank/cut/delete/etc., it saves which visual mode it was done in.

That being said, how exactly does that work? I'm working on a plugin, and I'd like to be able to tell vim to paste text as if they were originally copied in linewise or characterwise visual mode.

1 Answer 1

7

You can use getregtype() to get a register's type (characterwise, linewise, blockwise).

echo getregtype('a')

This will yield, v, V, or <c-v> for the "a register.

For more help see:

:h getregtype()
:h getreg()
:h setreg()
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  • Fantastic! That's exactly what I was looking for. Also, I forgot about setreg, I'd only been using let @X = "val". Double thanks!
    – d0c_s4vage
    Nov 22, 2017 at 16:25

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