Pasting in command line Vim doesn't have to suck

http://userobsessed.net/tips-and-tricks/2011/05/10/copy-and-paste-in-vim/

by joefiorini • 15 years ago

29 31 15 years ago

userobsessed.net

bawatski2• 15 years ago

... and I thought it was how to paste in vim commandline after :

sixtofour• 15 years ago

How to paste in vim commandline after :

    <ESC>
    (normal mode)
    q:
    (fully vim editable window of :command line history)
    (edit one of the command lines, yank and put all you like)
    (or edit the new blank command line at the bottom)
    <ESC><ENTER>
    (to execute the current line, or)
    :q
    (to quit without executing)
    (normal mode)

Notice the symmetry of q: to get in, and :q to get out (if you don't execute).

q/ and q? to edit and execute search history.

[edit formatting]

cschneid• 15 years ago

ctrl-r <register> pastes that register into your command.

So I often need to find "where is this method defined" across a large project.

    yw (yank word to get method into the " register)
    :Ack <ctrl-r>"  (ack plugin, paste that default " register)
    <enter> yay! I found it.

Alternately:

    /foo  (attempt to find foo in this file. Whoops, not there, where is it!).
    :Ack <ctrl-r>/  (last search is in the / register).
    There it is!

bawatski2• 15 years ago

wow! this is exactly what i was looking for. thank you.

graywh• 15 years ago

When the author says "command line Vim" he means "Vim running in a terminal emulator".

And pasting to terminal Vim doesn't suck if your Vim is configured to detect mouse clicks or interface with the system clipboard. Using the system paste shortcut (command- or ctrl-V) in insert mode is not the way to do it.

Leynos• 15 years ago

Although if you're using Vim over SSH from a Windows box, the :set paste command is useful to know.

burgerbrain2• 15 years ago

  :set pastetoggle=<F5>

Wack F5, middle-click paste away.

joefiorini3• 15 years ago

Sure, that works great if you want to reach for the mouse.

zosi• 15 years ago

Unless, of course, the system clipboard is on a different machine than the running copy of Vim. This is useful advice, you really don't have to be so negative about it just because you aren't in a situation where it's applicable.

pyre3• 15 years ago

If your ssh session has X11 forwarding enabled, and the remote terminal Vim has +xclipboard support, then you can use the "+P keystroke to paste directly from the clipboard into Vim.

joefiorini3• 15 years ago

Good point on my wording, thank you. I will change that to make it less confusing. As for middle-click, I really don't want to use the mouse. I don't use it for pasting anywhere else, so why would I change that for Vim?

bingaman• 15 years ago

On a mac, you can use :r !pbpaste

If you're ssh'd somewhere it's a different story. I've seen some things about sharing clipboards across shells, but I've never bothered to set it up.

Also, copy-pasta makes for bad code.

joefiorini3• 15 years ago

Thanks for the tip! I also learned you can do:

:a! <paste like normal> <C-c>

and that will paste with properly formatted text.

yesbabyyes3• 15 years ago

Vim can actually access the system clipboard (and, on Linux, the X clipboard). It's accessed as the * register (or + for the X clipboard). So, for instance:

    "*dd
    "*p

    "+yy
    "+P

And so on. Very convenient (and also much faster than Ctrl+V). On Ubuntu, this is only available in the Vim provided by vim-gnome or vim-gtk (even when running in a terminal).

pyre3• 15 years ago

It's only available when Vim is compiled with +xclipboard support. I actually found that on an older version of CentOS (v4, I don't know if it's different in newer versions), the 'vim' command and the 'gvim' command were separately compiled binaries so that 'vim' command didn't share the +xclipboard support. On Debian/Ubuntu, I believe they are the same binary.

yesbabyyes3• 15 years ago

Exactly. On my machine (Ubuntu 11.04) the binary (/usr/bin/vim.basic) provided by the vim package is compiled with -clipboard -xterm_clipboard, and the binary (/usr/bin/vim.gnome) provided by vim-gnome is compiled with +clipboard +xterm_clipboard.

sofal• 15 years ago

Honest question: how is that faster than Ctrl+V? Is it because you don't need the mouse?

Symmetry• 15 years ago

Its not. You usually do most of your copying and pasting within vim so you can just use the normal past command, but it is annoying when you want to do something with the system clipboard.

yesbabyyes3• 15 years ago

I'm sorry for the confusion. There are two ways it can be faster. The way you understood it, I guess, is in typing. The difference here is:

  i Ctrl v Esc

  (Shift) " * p

Where, on my keyboard, both " and * requires the shift key, but YMMV.

What I meant, though, is the actual input of text. When pasting with Ctrl+V, that's like one character at a time for Vim, and that's visible, so if you paste a large body of text you can actually see it scrolling past. When working with buffer commands, it works just any other internal Vim buffer operation, which is instantaneous.

mpobrien• 15 years ago

Another method I sometimes use for pasting large blocks of code:

    :r !cat
    (paste your stuff)
    ctrl - D

Doesn't require any switching between paste modes.

iopuy• 15 years ago

Interesting.... I see how it works, any other benefit to this approach?

tzs• 15 years ago

Nice idea, and you can replace cat if you need to clean up the paste:

    :r!perltidy
    (paste coworker's ugly perl code)
    ctrl-D

and you have nice looking code pasted.

oinksoft• 15 years ago

"Argh, how do I paste?!"

  :h paste

hernan7• 15 years ago

You can also paste in "ex" mode.

ESC

Q --> to go to "ex" mode

i --> to start inserting

paste text here

. --> line containing a single period to exit "ex" insert mode

:vi --> to return to "vi" mode

...golfer, moi?

anurag• 15 years ago

Vim has a built-in directive to toggle paste mode:

set pastetoggle=<F3>

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Toggle_auto-indenting_for_code_pas...

phaedrix• 15 years ago

perhaps, I'm forgetting something, but these solutions seem overly complicated.

I just have this in my .vimrc, and pasting (with formatting), is as simple as copying text, going to vim and hitting 'p' in command mode.

  for middle-click (system) clipboard:
    :set clipboard=unnamed
  for ctrl-c (X11) clipboard:
    :set clipboard=unnamedplus

  couple caveats:
  * +xterm_clipboard
  * 'unnamedplus' is only for >= 7.3.74

see here for more info http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Accessing_the_system_clipboard

note: I used unnamedplus for a bit, but found it to be much less desirable than using the unnamed middle-click buffer...YMMV

Pasting in command line Vim doesn't have to suck

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