What is the use of the black hole register ("_)?

Question

I recently read about the black hole register "_ which is a write-only register.

Vim documentation describes it this way:

9. Black hole register "_

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.

In all the articles and books I read the authors always use the same example which is to use this register when we need to delete some text without erasing what we previously yanked.

I understand this use but I'm surprised by the fact that I can't find other use cases of this register, which leads me to 2 questions:

• Is this register useful in some other use cases? If yes, which ones?

• If the only purpose of this register is to be used in the use case I quoted before, why did the creators of Vim decided to solve this problem with such a register? I mean this answer shows a solution to the problem which implies less keystrokes than using "_. Using "0 can also avoid the use of the black hole register so why did they create it?

Answer 1

The black hole register is used in the same situations as /dev/null: when you do an action that normally outputs something but you have no use for that output.

Vim's default behavior is to "cut", not "delete". In most cases it doesn't matter but, sometimes, users may actually need to "delete". That's where the black hole register comes handy.

Is this register useful in some other use cases?

The black hole register is here to let us cut stuff without clobbering the unnamed register and the numbered registers.

The possible use cases are numerous but all unsurprisingly very similar:

• provide an actual "delete",
• have a better control over registers, mainly the unnamed one,
• keep the numbered registers in a stable state,
• cut something while retaining the ability to put from the unnamed register, giving us "repeatable puts",
• put something over something you don't care about,
• prevent side effects in scripts…

One could use "0p for the "repeated puts" scenario (the most common use case, hence its ubiquity in the Vim literature) but that register is far from being as useful as "_ for the other scenarios.

Answer 2

Besides deleting text, you can use the black hole register to delete other registers. Example:

:let @a=@_

This is one way of clearing register "a.

Answer 3

One practical use in one function. In the bellow function the python comment # is added and removed depending on the result of getline('.')[0]. If the line has a comment the char # is deleted, but in this case we don't want it to mess with our default register.

function! ToggleComment()
    let l:win_view = winsaveview()
    if getline('.')[0] == "#"
        normal! 0"_x
    else
        normal! I#
    endif
    call winrestview(l:win_view)
endfunction
nnoremap <Leader>t :call ToggleComment()<CR>
vnoremap <Leader>t <C-o>:call ToggleComment()<CR>