Is there a way to paste at multiple locations/lines in vim?

Question

I use :copy a fair bit. So like range :12,15 copy 20 will paste a block of text from 12 to 15 lines at 20th line. But when I want to paste a line at multiple places it doesn't work. For example :24 copy 12,22,25 it only pastes 24th line at 12th line. Is there a plugin or .vimrc setting that can help me achieve this behavior?

Answer 1

Use vim-visual-multi. Create cursors at different places using \\c and press p.

Answer 2

For example :24 copy 12,22,25 it only pastes 24th line at 12th line.

It is interpreted as a range, not as a list, of which copy is able to take a first address only.

Is there a plugin or .vimrc setting that can help me achieve this behavior?

It's missing, probably, because it's rarely found useful. But you can always add such command yourself.

function! s:multicopy(line1, line2, ...) abort
  " save the text to be copied
  let l:text = getline(a:line1, a:line2)
  " sort line numbers to prevent overlapping
  let l:lines = reverse(sort(filter(map(copy(a:000),
    \ {k, v -> trim(execute(v . '=', 'silent!'))}), '!empty(v:val)'), 'N'))
  " now make all the copies
  for l:line in l:lines
    call append(l:line, l:text)
  endfor
endfunction
command! -range -nargs=+ Copy call s:multicopy(<line1>, <line2>, <f-args>)

Note that normally Ex commands use a space as an argument separator, so you are expected to type

:24Copy 12 22 25

UPD.: Added support for an arbitrary :h :range specification. Known bugs/features:

1. /pat/ and ?pat? always must be closed. That is, Copy /foo is not supported, use Copy /foo/ instead.
2. With a range a last address is taken. That is, Copy 10,20 is the same as Copy 20, although copy 10,20 is the same as copy 10 (a range rarely makes sense for a copy destination anyway).
3. No error messages (E16, E486 etc.) are given for bad arguments.
4. Executing an arbitrary string may have some unexpected side-effects.