How does one perform a multi-line copy and paste between two sessions in Vim?

Question

I am familiar with the y, p method of copying and pasting a line within Vim; however, I have been unsuccessful in finding a straight forward method for copying multiple lines which have been yanked in visual mode.

the idea would be:

Shift + v
down arrow n times
y
:q!
open new file, or switch buffer
p

When yanking with visual mode, it will copy the first line of the yanked block to your Registers in .viminfo, but nothing else

I would assume you need to create an instance of a clipboard which is global to all sessions of vim attached to a specific user, but I am not well versed enough in Vim to code this up myself.

edit: As it would appear, I made a mistake in my approach. Using Shift+v is the prescribed method to use when copying and pasting between sessions. Thanks for the help @Doorknob

Answer 1

Assuming you have a viminfo file (located at ~/.viminfo on Linux/Unix systems and $HOME\_viminfo on Windows), all of your buffers should be persistent across Vim sessions.

Note that if you're on a Linux/Unix system, this file must be owned by you (ls -l ~/.viminfo to verify that it is and chown $USER ~/.viminfo if it's not). Otherwise, it will have no effect.

Answer 2

I know this is old but I came across it and thought a different option might be useful for other people searching for this question.

I would yank to the system register and then open the new file and paste from the system register.

First find out what symbol represents your system clipboard. In Linux you have two options + or *. I use + but more info can be found here: https://superuser.com/questions/624231/in-vim-what-is-the-difference-between-and-registers. For Windows Mac + and * are the same thing.

Then instead of yanking with y yank with "+y and instead of paste p use "+p