Vertically rotate visual block

Question

How would one vertically rotate a visual block of text?

For example given this:

h
e
l
l
o

Select those characters in visual block and rotate them once:

o
h
e
l
l

As you see, every character is moved down one line, and the last character (o) is wrapped around and put on top

Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can do it like this:

• select the lines you want to rotate (with V or <C-v>)
• type :
• type <C-w> to get rid of the '<,'> that appeared after the :
• type '> move '<-1, or the short version '>m'<-
• press <Enter>

Explanation

The move command accepts a range to move and an address to where the content should be moved (see :help move).

In this case '> is the range. It translates to "the last line of the visual selection". On the other hand, '<- is the address where we want the selected range to be moved to. It means "the line before (-) the first visually selected line ('<)".

This can be difficult to type and you have to get rid of the '<,'> that appears when you type : in Visual mode.

Solution 2

It is much easier to just select all the lines but the last and type dp. This will delete the selected lines (hell) and put them after the o.

Answer 2

Here's a solution that works even if there are surrounding characters:

kdjP`]lx`<P

Which can be mapped to a key like so:

vnoremap <C-r> kdjP`]lx`<P

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Explanation (here, bolded letters symbolize the cursor / selected text):

Initial text:

.......
...h...
...e...
...l...
...l...
...o...
.......

kdjP: cut all but the last letter and paste it one row down:

.......
......
...h...
...e...
...l...
...lo...
.......

`]lx: go to the end of the text that was just pasted (`]), move to the character next to it (l), and cut it (x)¹:

.......
......
...h...
...e...
...l...
...l...
.......

`<P: go back to the beginning of the original visual selection (`<), and paste the last character you just deleted (P):

.......
...o...
...h...
...e...
...l...
...l...
.......

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^{1: the dot to the right of the l is bolded, although it's hard to see.}