Vim: insert the same characters across multiple lines

366
votes

Sometimes I want to edit a certain visual block of text across multiple lines.

For example, I would take a text that looks like this:

name
comment
phone
email

And make it look like this

vendor_name
vendor_comment
vendor_phone
vendor_email

Currently the way I would do it now is...

  1. Select all 4 row lines of a block by pressing V and then j four times.
  2. Indent with >.
  3. Go back one letter with h.
  4. Go to block visual mode with Ctrlv.
  5. Select down four rows by pressing j four times. At this point you have selected a 4x1 visual blocks of whitespace (four rows and one column).
  6. Press C. Notice this pretty much indented to the left by one column.
  7. Type out a " vendor_" without the quote. Notice the extra space we had to put back.
  8. Press Esc. This is one of the very few times I use Esc to get out of insert mode. Ctrlc would only edit the first line.
  9. Repeat step 1.
  10. Indent the other way with <.

I don't need to indent if there is at least one column of whitespace before the words. I wouldn't need the whitespace if I didn't have to clear the visual block with c.

But if I have to clear, then is there a way to do what I performed above without creating the needed whitespace with indentation?

Also why does editing multiple lines at once only work by exiting out of insert mode with Esc over Ctrlc?

Here is a more complicated example:

name    = models.CharField( max_length = 135 )
comment = models.TextField( blank = True )
phone   = models.CharField( max_length = 135, blank = True )
email   = models.EmailField( blank = True )

to

name    = models.whatever.CharField( max_length = 135 )
comment = models.whatever.TextField( blank = True )
phone   = models.whatever.CharField( max_length = 135, blank = True )
email   = models.whatever.EmailField( blank = True )

In this example I would perform the vertical visual block over the ., and then reinsert it back during insert mode, i.e., type .whatever.. Hopefully now you can see the drawback to this method. I am limited to only selecting a column of text that are all the same in a vertical position.

12
vim
Better way: ":%s/^/vendor_/" – Paul Tomblin
Thanks for the response. That works if I only want to append a word to every line. But the method I use can be done at any position. Let me add another my example with a more complicated example. – hobbes3
Then highlight the lines you want to change with shift-V, and type an appropriate search and replace command - in the second example, :s/models\./\0whatever./ – Paul Tomblin
Many ways to achieve the above. To fully answer all parts of question then part 1) either regex or visual mode I edit esc works nicely as offered in answers (I prefer visual selection in GVIM). For part 2), macro is perhaps easiest as offered by Brian Neal. The best resource I know of for all these kinds of "how tos" is Practical Vim by Drew Neil. Excellent quick read and light weight reference whenever you forget a formula. Hope this recommendation helps someone, it will be well worth the effort for many vim users. – arcseldon
@Paul: And if you’re counting keystrokes, you could replace \0 with &. – icktoofay

12 Answers

1036
votes
  1. Move the cursor to the n in name.
  2. Enter visual block mode (Ctrlv).
  3. Press j three times (or 3j).
  4. Press I (capital i).
  5. Type in vendor_. Note: It will only update the screen in the first line - until Esc is pressed (6.), at which point all lines will be updated.
  6. Press Esc.

mini-screencast demonstrating the method

An uppercase I must be used rather than a lowercase i, because the lowercase i is interpreted as the start of a text object, which is rather useful on its own, e.g. for selecting inside a tag block (it):

mini-screencast showing the usefulness of the 'it' text object

77
votes

Another approach is to use the . (dot) command in combination with I.

  1. Move the cursor where you want to start
  2. Press I
  3. Type in the prefix you want (e.g. vendor_)
  4. Press esc.
  5. Press j to go down a line
  6. Type . to repeat the last edit, automatically inserting the prefix again
  7. Alternate quickly between j and .

I find this technique is often faster than the visual block mode for small numbers of additions and has the added benefit that if you don't need to insert the text on every single line in a range you can easily skip them by pressing extra j's.

Note that for large number of contiguous additions, the block approach or macro will likely be superior.

54
votes
  1. Select the lines you want to modify using CtrlV.

  2. Press:

    • I: Insert before what's selected.
    • A: Append after what's selected.
    • c: Replace what's selected.

  3. Type the new text.

  4. Press Esc to apply the changes to all selected lines.
33
votes

I would use a macro to record my actions and would then repeat it.

  1. Put your cursor on the first letter in name.
  2. Hit qq to start recording into the q buffer.
  3. Hit i to go into insert mode, type vector_, and then hit Esc to leave insert mode.
  4. Now hit 0 to go back to the beginning of the line.
  5. Now hit j to go down.
  6. Now hit q again to stop recording.

You now have a nice macro.

Type 3@q to execute your macro three times to do the rest of the lines.

30
votes
:%s/^/vendor_/

or am I missing something?

13
votes

Updated January 2016

Whilst the accepted answer is a great solution, this is actually slightly fewer keystrokes, and scales better - based in principle on the accepted answer.

  1. Move the cursor to the n in name.
  2. Enter visual block mode (ctrlv).
  3. Press 3j
  4. Press I.
  5. Type in vendor_.
  6. Press esc.

visual illustration

Note, this has fewer keystrokes than the accepted answer provided (compare Step 3). We just count the number of j actions to perform.

If you have line numbers enabled (as illustrated above), and know the line number you wish to move to, then step 3 can be changed to #G where # is the wanted line number.

In our example above, this would be 4G. However when dealing with just a few line numbers an explicit count works well.

8
votes

I wanted to comment out a lot of lines in some config file on a server that only had vi (no nano), so visual method was cumbersome as well Here's how i did that.

  1. Open file vi file
  2. Display line numbers :set number! or :set number
  3. Then use the line numbers to replace start-of-line with "#", how?

:35,77s/^/#/

Note: the numbers are inclusive, lines from 35 to 77, both included will be modified.

To uncomment/undo that, simply use :35,77s/^#//

If you want to add a text word as a comment after every line of code, you can also use:

:35,77s/$/#test/ (for languages like Python)

:35,77s/;$/;\/\/test/ (for languages like Java)

credits/references:

  1. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/84929/uncommenting-multiple-lines-of-code-specified-by-line-numbers-using-vi-or-vim

  2. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/120615/how-to-comment-multiple-lines-at-once

7
votes

You might also have a use case where you want to delete a block of text and replace it.

Like this

Hello World

Hello World

To

Hello Cool

Hello Cool

You can just visual block select "World" in both lines.

Type c for change - now you will be in insert mode.

Insert the stuff you want and hit escape.

Both get reflected vertically. It works just like 'I', except that it replaces the block with the new text instead of inserting it.

6
votes

Suppose you have this file:

something

name
comment
phone
email

something else
and more ...

You want to add "vendor_" in front of "name", "comment", "phone", and "email", regardless of where they appear in the file.

:%s/\<\(name\|comment\|phone\|email\)\>/vendor_\1/gc

The c flag will prompt you for confirmation. You can drop that if you don't want the prompt.

6
votes

An alternative that can be more flexible:

Example: To enter the text XYZ at the beginning of the line

:%norm IXYZ

What's happening here?

  • % == Execute on every line
  • norm == Execute the following keys in normal mode
  • I == Insert at beginning of line
  • XYZ == The text you want to enter

Then you hit Enter, and it executes.

Specific to your request:

:%norm Ivendor_

You can also choose a particular range:

:2,4norm Ivendor_

Or execute over a selected visual range:

:'<,'>norm Ivendor_
4
votes
Use Ctrl+V to enter visual block mode
Move Up/Down to select the columns of text in the lines you want to comment.
Then hit Shift+i and type the text you want to insert.
Then hit Esc, wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line
2
votes
  1. Ctrl + v to go to visual block mode
  2. Select the lines using the up and down arrow
  3. Enter lowercase 3i (press lowercase I three times)
  4. I (press capital I. That will take you into insert mode.)
  5. Write the text you want to add
  6. Esc
  7. Press the down arrow