How to replace a space after a word with a line break (new line)?

Question

In Neovim, I used the J command to join lines, and now I'm looking for a keybinding in normal mode that can do the opposite: replace the space after a word with a line break.

I've tried a few "revJ" (reverse J) plugins for Neovim, but I couldn't get them to work correctly, likely due to my configuration.

I'm wondering if there's a good solution for this inconvenience.

My goal:

"a, bb, ccc" => "a,
                 bb,
                 ccc"

Answer 1

The :substitute command can be used to replace spaces with line breaks like this:

:s/ /\r/g

This will replace every space with a line break and repeat for every match on the line (g flag at the end)

It would be a little more robust (and a little bit more typing) to use:

:s/\s\+/\r/g

This will work on any sequence of whitespace (\s) repeated one or more times (\+). So tabs are also taken care of, and multiple spaces will still result in only one line break.

See :help :substitute for reference.

To create a reverse J mapping for regular use, you can use the following:

:nnoremap <key> <Cmd>s/\s\+/\g/g<CR>

Replace <key> with whatever key (sequence) you want for reverse J.

By the way, all of this will work both in Vim and in NeoVim.

Answer 2

The solution I found:

The keybindig consists of the following commands: f<space>s<enter><C-c>

f<space> ... jumps over a word

s<enter> ... removes the space and inserts a new line character

<C-c> ... represents the keybind Ctrl-C and for me, it exits the insert mode

This solution is meant for those who want a command that works on a line-per-line basis and doesn't just transform the whole text. This solution also works if there are multiple spaces between words.