CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimvi
Ray P.
Ray P.

Reputation: 925

A custom function in Vim

I'm quite new to Vim/Vi, and I need to write a custom function/macro. Is it possible to define a command (ex. :mycommand) that would format the lines in the current file like so:

Initial lines:

This is line 1
This is line 2

This is line 3
This is line 4

This is line 5

This is line 6
This is line 7
This is line 8

Result:

This is line 1\nThis is line 2
This is line 3\nThis is line 4
This is line 5
This is line 6\nThis is line 7\nThis is line 8

How do I go about creating such a script? And where do I place it?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1388

Answers (1)

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195029

Marco

You can record a macro, to join two lines by \n separator, for example in your vimrc:

let @x='gJi\n^['

(the ^[ above, you press ctrl-v Esc)

Assume your cursor is on the first line, you can do @x in normal mode, then )J@@ for the 2nd block, then job is done.

You can wrap those operations in function or create them as mapping.

Join plugin

I have written a Join script: https://github.com/sk1418/Join , it supports to join lines with separator and other features, in your case, you can execute command: :J '\n', it will do what above macro (@x) does. You can put it in your function too, like:

function Foo()
   Join '\n'
   join!
   Join '\n'
endfunction

Update for the Question modification:

The modification you made, turned the question into another one... However it could be solved, I listed two possibilities below, one is vim way, the other is with external awk tool, if you have awk available on your system.

with vim :s cmd

This command should do it for you:

%s/\n\n/∢/g|%s/\n\ze./\\n/g|%s/∢/\r/g
  • the ∢ is done by pressing ctrl-v u2222, it is just for a special char, which not exists in your text, you can use other uni-code chars too.

with external awk

%!awk -v RS='\n\n' '{gsub(ORS, "\\n")}7'

This will do the transformation for you, however it leaves an extra \n at the end of the file, just remove it.

Upvotes: 1

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