CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
Mikey
Mikey

Reputation: 119

VIM internal count variable

I discovered VIM has internal variables count and prevcount. However the count variable is somehow different from prevcount as per the following examples...

echo v:prevcount gives the last normal count value that you typed. echo prevcount gives error "undefined variable". echo v:count gives the value 0 seemingly every time. echo count also gives the value 0 every time.

So why didn't echo count give an error like echo prevcount did?

Note that echo l:count also gives error "undefined variable", as does every other possible prefix except v:.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 195

Answers (1)

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172648

You'll find the answer under :help v:count:

  [...]
  "count" also works, for backwards compatibility.

In early Vim versions, there was no v: prefix. They later realized that it's better to have a dedicated namespace for internal variables. v:prevcount was only introduced later, so there's no need to be backward compatible there. You should always use the v:count variant today.

Upvotes: 4

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