How do I yank the next 4000 chars, ignoring linebreaks?

Question

I can for example, copy three lines to the clipboard with "+y3j. But I nothing happens when I attempt to yank chars to the clipboard with, say,"+y100l.

Ultimately, I want to copy chunks of 4000 chars.

Answer 1

I think this will work:

:set whichwrap+=h,l

Then you should be able to yank characters, spanning lines.

Unfortunately this has the side effect of having the h and l able to "wrap" across lines if you use them at the beginning/end of a line, so you may want to do this instead:

:se whichwrap+=<,>

Then use the Left and Right arrow keys in your key sequence instead of h or l.

I don't know why your "+y3l doesn't work, as it should work just fine, and works for me.