1763
votes

How do I duplicate a whole line in Vim in a similar way to Ctrl+D in IntelliJ IDEA/ Resharper or Ctrl+Alt+/ in Eclipse?

20
Do people not run vimtutor anymore? This is probably within the first five minutes of learning how to use Vim.dash-tom-bang
Would you like to duplicate this line? Yes Please. :)Stavr00
FWIW I have done vimtutor about a dozen times in the last 2 months and this concept is not covered. It tells how to do “dd” and “v - navigate - y” followed by “p”. It does not tell how to copy a single line without deleting it as is asked here.danielson317

20 Answers

2975
votes

yy or Y to copy the line (mnemonic: yank)
or
dd to delete the line (Vim copies what you deleted into a clipboard-like "register", like a cut operation)

then

p to paste the copied or deleted text after the current line
or
P to paste the copied or deleted text before the current line

444
votes

Normal mode: see other answers.

The Ex way:

  • :t. will duplicate the line,
  • :t 7 will copy it after line 7,
  • :,+t0 will copy current and next line at the beginning of the file (,+ is a synonym for the range .,.+1),
  • :1,t$ will copy lines from beginning till cursor position to the end (1, is a synonym for the range 1,.).

If you need to move instead of copying, use :m instead of :t.

This can be really powerful if you combine it with :g or :v:

  • :v/foo/m$ will move all lines not matching the pattern “foo” to the end of the file.
  • :+,$g/^\s*class\s\+\i\+/t. will copy all subsequent lines of the form class xxx right after the cursor.

Reference: :help range, :help :t, :help :g, :help :m and :help :v

311
votes

YP or Yp or yyp.

273
votes

copy and paste in vim

Doesn't get any simpler than this! From normal mode:

yy

then move to the line you want to paste at and

p
58
votes

yy

will yank the current line without deleting it

dd

will delete the current line

p

will put a line grabbed by either of the previous methods

46
votes

If you want another way:

"ayy: This will store the line in buffer a.

"ap: This will put the contents of buffer a at the cursor.

There are many variations on this.

"a5yy: This will store the 5 lines in buffer a.

See "Vim help files for more fun.

45
votes

Do this:

First, yy to copy the current line, and then p to paste.

44
votes

yyp - remember it with "yippee!"

Multiple lines with a number in between:

y7yp

27
votes

yyp - paste after

yyP - paste before

16
votes

I like: Shift+v (to select the whole line immediately and let you select other lines if you want), y, p

11
votes

You can also try <C-x><C-l> which will repeat the last line from insert mode and brings you a completion window with all of the lines. It works almost like <C-p>

11
votes

Another option would be to go with:

nmap <C-d> mzyyp`z

gives you the advantage of preserving the cursor position.

10
votes

For someone who doesn't know vi, some answers from above might mislead him with phrases like "paste ... after/before current line".
It's actually "paste ... after/before cursor".

yy or Y to copy the line
or
dd to delete the line

then

p to paste the copied or deleted text after the cursor
or
P to paste the copied or deleted text before the cursor


For more key bindings, you can visit this site: vi Complete Key Binding List

5
votes

Default is yyp, but I've been using this rebinding for a year or so and love it:

" set Y to duplicate lines, works in visual mode as well. nnoremap Y yyp vnoremap Y y`>pgv

5
votes

I know I'm late to the party, but whatever; I have this in my .vimrc:

nnoremap <C-d> :copy .<CR>
vnoremap <C-d> :copy '><CR>

the :copy command just copies the selected line or the range (always whole lines) to below the line number given as its argument.

In normal mode what this does is copy . copy this line to just below this line.

And in visual mode it turns into '<,'> copy '> copy from start of selection to end of selection to the line below end of selection.

3
votes

1 gotcha: when you use "p" to put the line, it puts it after the line your cursor is on, so if you want to add the line after the line you're yanking, don't move the cursor down a line before putting the new line.

2
votes

For those starting to learn vi, here is a good introduction to vi by listing side by side vi commands to typical Windows GUI Editor cursor movement and shortcut keys. It lists all the basic commands including yy (copy line) and p (paste after) or P(paste before).

vi (Vim) for Windows Users

2
votes

If you would like to duplicate a line and paste it right away below the current like, just like in Sublime Ctrl+Shift+D, then you can add this to your .vimrc file.

nmap <S-C-d> <Esc>Yp

Or, for Insert mode:

imap <S-C-d> <Esc>Ypa

0
votes

I like to use this mapping:

:nnoremap yp Yp

because it makes it consistent to use alongside the native YP command.

0
votes

I use this mapping, which is similar to vscode. I hope it is useful!!!.

nnoremap <A-d> :t. <CR>==
inoremap <A-d> <Esc>:t. <CR>==gi
vnoremap <A-d> :t$ <CR>gv=gv