8

Context

I use vifm as my file manager (that's off topic here, i know, but keep reading) which allows me to edit filenames inside a vim buffer.

One issue i found myself annoyed at are numbered files where I want to keep leading zeros (e.g. movie0001.webm). I can't get vim to format them properly.

The question

I have a vim buffer containing:

mov70.webm
mov71.webm
mov72.webm
mov73.webm
mov74.webm
mov75.webm
mov76.webm
mov77.webm
mov78.webm
mov79.webm

And my cursor starts at the m in the first line. I then do VG to mark everything and 69<C-x> to transform it into:

mov1.webm
mov2.webm
mov3.webm
mov4.webm
mov5.webm
mov6.webm
mov7.webm
mov8.webm
mov9.webm
mov10.webm

But i would really like to reach this instead:

mov01.webm
mov02.webm
mov03.webm
mov04.webm
mov05.webm
mov06.webm
mov07.webm
mov08.webm
mov09.webm
mov10.webm

What i have tried

The problem with numbers with leading zeros is that vim will treat them as octal, therefore I changed nrformats to an empty string:

:set nrformats=

Yet, that did not help. I have searched around in :h nrformats without finding anything useful.

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1
  • 3
    Sounds more like a job for :subsitute + printf – muru Jun 24 '16 at 22:21
6

This can be done in two relatively simple steps:

  1. Decrement the lines with ctrl-x
  2. Run a substituion on the changed lines to add the leading zeros: '[,']s/\d\@<!\d\>/0\0/

You could turn that into a command/function if you think you'll need to do this often.

Another way is to do as muru mentioned and use substitute + printf, which can preserve the string length of the replaced digits:

'<,'>s/\d\+/\=printf('%0*d', len(submatch(0)), submatch(0) - 69)

This could also be turned into a reusable command:

command! -nargs=1 -range Decr <line1>,<line2>s/\d\+/\=printf('%0*d', len(submatch(0)), submatch(0) - <args>)

Which you can run with :'<,'>Decr 69 to decrement the visual lines by 69.

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1
  • I'm still learning viscript but len(submatch(0)) is a great trick. Added it to my vimrc, and also added a Incr command. – grochmal Jun 25 '16 at 23:59
8

While I'd definitely go with :s + printf for complex replacements, I can get the effect you desire if I start from 00, and have set nrformats-=octal. That is:

  1. Select the numbers in a visual block:

    enter image description here

    Note that I have added mov76.webm - you don't actually have ten files in your example list.

  2. Replace with zeros and select the same region again: r0gv

    enter image description here

  3. Use g<c-a>:

    enter image description here

Without set nrformats-=octal, you'll see 010, 011, etc.

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5
  • Your 0s look like eyes. Creepy. – romainl Jun 25 '16 at 14:06
  • Ooops, that was a mistake with the mov76.webm, i used a bad directory. I edited the question. Yay, for the andale font. – grochmal Jun 25 '16 at 14:31
  • @grochmal That's the Ubuntu Mono font. :D – muru Jun 25 '16 at 14:35
  • @romainl and now I can't unsee it. – muru Jun 25 '16 at 14:35
  • The suggestion to use set nrformats-=octal worked for me! I often need to increment text with leading zeros and always was confused why the behavior was not as expected. As for other number formats (oct, hex, binary), well, I have never needed to increment them using vim. – JDG Aug 29 '20 at 16:57

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