CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
tarsis
tarsis

Reputation: 174

Vim - g command for deleting characters in specific columns

I want to delete 5 characters starting from column 11 in the whole file. When I type 

11|5x

it works for the line the cursor is on. But when I type

:g/.*/11|5x

the editor closes.

How should I use the g command properly?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 399

Answers (3)

Bohr
Bohr

Reputation: 1716

The normal | motion bring the cursor to a screen column, which may not be expected when you have multi-column characters like <Tab> in a line.

Substitution globally like below can avoid this problem:

%s/\%10c.\{5}/, in which \%10c matches the column position of the 10th character.

Upvotes: 0

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172510

Understanding Vi(m) modes is key to mastering it.

The | command to jump to a screen column is a normal mode command, but the :global command takes Ex commands. The :normal Ex commands interprets following arguments as normal mode commands (with !: without considering mappings (which is safer)):

:g/.*/normal! 11|5x

PS: A shorter "match anywhere" pattern for :g is ^ instead of .*.

Upvotes: 7

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195029

try

:g/./norm! 11|5x

you need the normal

Upvotes: 2

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