[vim] What Vim command(s) can be used to quote/unquote words?

How can I quickly quote/unquote words and change quoting (e.g. from ' to ") in Vim? I know about the surround.vim plugin, but I would like to use just Vim.

To wrap in single quotes (for example) ciw'<C-r>"'<esc> works, but repeat won't work. Try:

ciw'<C-r><C-o>"'<esc>

This puts the contents of the default register "literally". Now you can press . on any word to wrap it in quotes. To learn more see :h[elp] i_ctrl-r and more about text objects at :h text-objects

Source: http://vimcasts.org/episodes/pasting-from-insert-mode/

In addition to the other commands, this will enclose all words in a line in double quotes (as per your comment)

:s/\(\S\+\)/"\1"/

or if you want to reduce the number of backslashes, you can put a \v (very-magic) modifier at the start of the pattern

:s/\v(\S+)/"\1"/

Quote a word, using single quotes

ciw'Ctrl+r"'

It was easier for me to do it this way

ciw '' Esc P

The macro ways !

1. press q and q for recording into q register (we use "q" as shortcut to remember "quotes").

2. press shift + b move cursor to front of current word

3. press i type ' (a single quotes)

4. press esc then press e to move to end of word

5. press a then press ' again to surround the word with quotes.

6. press esc to get into normal mode.

7. finally press q to record it into q register.

How to use

1. Move cursor to a desired word.
2. Press @q to surround a word with quotes.
3. Press @@ if you want repeat it into another word.

You can alter step 4 with anything you like {a line, a word until found some character, etc}.

Make recorded macro persistent

1. open .vimrc
2. go to end of file
3. change to insert mode. type this to make it persistent:

let @q='ctrl + r ctrl + r q'

4. save and quit

5. open your files, go to some words

6. now press @q

if you do it correctly, magic things should appear in your words.

You can apply this to other macros you loved.

Here are some simple mappings that can be used to quote and unquote a word:

" 'quote' a word
nnoremap qw :silent! normal mpea'<Esc>bi'<Esc>`pl
" double "quote" a word
nnoremap qd :silent! normal mpea"<Esc>bi"<Esc>`pl
" remove quotes from a word
nnoremap wq :silent! normal mpeld bhd `ph<CR>

Adding Quotes

I started using this quick and dirty function in my .vimrc:

vnoremap q <esc>:call QuickWrap("'")<cr>
vnoremap Q <esc>:call QuickWrap('"')<cr>

function! QuickWrap(wrapper)
  let l:w = a:wrapper
  let l:inside_or_around = (&selection == 'exclusive') ? ('i') : ('a')
  normal `>
  execute "normal " . inside_or_around . escape(w, '\')
  normal `<
  execute "normal i" . escape(w, '\')
  normal `<
endfunction

So now, I visually select whatever I want (typically via viw - visually select inside word) in quotes and press Q for double quotes, or press q for single quotes.

Removing Quotes

vnoremap s <esc>:call StripWrap()<cr>

function! StripWrap()
  normal `>x`<x
endfunction

I use vim-textobj-quotes so that vim treats quotes as a text objects. This means I can do vaq (visually select around quotes. This finds the nearest quotes and visually selects them. (This is optional, you can just do something like f"vww). Then I press s to strip the quotes from the selection.

Changing Quotes

KISS. I remove quotes then add quotes. For example, to replace single quotes with double quotes, I would perform the steps: 1. remove single quotes: vaqs, 2. add new quotes: vwQ.

• http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Wrap_a_visual_selection_in_an_HTML_tag code from here was modified and used as part of my answer
• https://github.com/beloglazov/vim-textobj-quotes vim-text-obj-quotes

I wrote a script that does this:

function! WrapSelect (front)
    "puts characters around the selected text.
    let l:front = a:front
    if (a:front == '[')
        let l:back = ']'
    elseif (a:front == '(')
        let l:back = ')'
    elseif (a:front == '{')
        let l:back = '}'
    elseif (a:front == '<')
        let l:back = '>'
    elseif (a:front =~ " ")
        let l:split = split(a:front)
        let l:back = l:split[1]
        let l:front = l:split[0]
    else
        let l:back = a:front
    endif
    "execute: concat all these strings. '.' means "concat without spaces"
    "norm means "run in normal mode and also be able to use \<C-x> characters"
    "gv means "get the previous visual selection back up"
    "c means "cut visual selection and go to insert mode"
    "\<C-R> means "insert the contents of a register. in this case, the
    "default register"
    execute 'norm! gvc' . l:front. "\<C-R>\""  . l:back
endfunction
vnoremap <C-l> :<C-u>call WrapSelect(input('Wrapping? Give both (space separated) or just the first one: '))<cr>

To use, just highlight something, hit control l, and then type a character. If it's one of the characters the function knows about, it'll provide the correct terminating character. If it's not, it'll use the same character to insert on both sides.

Surround.vim can do more than just this, but this was sufficient for my needs.

Visual mode map example to add single quotes around a selected block of text:

:vnoremap qq <Esc>`>a'<Esc>`<i'<Esc>

wrap all words with quotes:

s/\(\w\+\)/"\1"/g

before:

aaa,bbb,ccc

after:

"aaa","bbb","ccc"

Here's some mapping that could help:

:nnoremap <Leader>q" ciw""<Esc>P
:nnoremap <Leader>q' ciw''<Esc>P
:nnoremap <Leader>qd daW"=substitute(@@,"'\\\|\"","","g")<CR>P

If you haven't changed the mapleader variable, then activate the mapping with \q" \q' or \qd. They add double quote around the word under the cursor, single quote around the word under the cursor, delete any quotes around the word under the cursor respectively.

VIM for vscode does it awsomely. It's based one vim-surround if you don't use vscode.

Some examples:

"test" with cursor inside quotes type cs"' to end up with 'test'

"test" with cursor inside quotes type ds" to end up with test

"test" with cursor inside quotes type cs"t and enter 123> to end up with <123>test

test with cursor on word test type ysaw) to end up with (test)

For users of VSCodeVim you can do

vwS"

• You can replace " with whatever you would like to wrap by.
• You can replace w with any other selection operator

If you use the vim plugin https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround (or use VSCode Vim plugin, which comes with vim-surround pre-installed), its pretty convinient!

add

ysiw' // surround in word `'`

drop

ds' // drop surround `'`

change

cs'" // change surround from `'` to `"`

It even works for html tags!

cst<em> // change surround from current tag to `<em>`

check out the readme on github for better examples

how about this?

 :%s/\'/"/g

I'm using nnoremap in my .vimrc

To single quote a word:

nnoremap sq :silent! normal mpea'<Esc>bi'<Esc>`pl

To remove quotes (works on double quotes as well):

nnoremap qs :silent! normal mpeld bhd `ph<CR>

Rule to remember: 'sq' = single quote.

I don't know any builtin vim command for this, but using r"f'r" to change from ' to " and r'f"r' to change from " to ' works if you stand on the first ' or ". The command r' replaces whatever character is under your cursor with ', and f" moves you forward to the next ".