What s a quick way to comment uncomment lines in Vim

Question

I have a Ruby code file open in vi  there are lines commented out with     class Search  lt  ActiveRecord  Migration   def self up       create table  searches do  t          t integer  user id         t string  name         t string  all of         t string  any of         t string  none of         t string  exact phrase                t timestamps       end   end    def self down       drop table  searches   end end   Say I want to uncomment all the lines in the first def     end section  What s an efficient way to do that in Vim   In general  I m looking for an easy and fluid way to comment and uncomment lines  Here I m dealing with Ruby code  but it could be JavaScript      or Haml  -

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I use comments vim from Jasmeet Singh Anand  found on vim org    It works with C  C    Java  PHP 2345   proc  CSS  HTML  htm  XML  XHTML  vim  vimrc  SQL  sh  ksh  csh  Perl  tex  fortran  ml  caml  ocaml  vhdl  haskel  and normal files  It comments and un-comments lines in different source files in both normal and visual  mode  Usage    CtrlC to comment a single line CtrlX to un-comment a single line ShiftV and select multiple lines  then CtrlC to comment the selected multiple lines ShiftV and select multiple lines  then CtrlX to un-comment the selected multiple lines

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g  spare 1-9      2s           The above code will comment out all the lines that contain  spare  and a number after that plus it will comment two lines more from the line in which that was found  For more such uses visit   http   vim wikia com wiki Search and replace Details

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Starting with the ideas in answers here  I started my own comment function  It toggles comments on and off  It can handle things like   print  blue      this thing is blue and just toggles the first comment  Furthermore it adds comments and a single space just where the first non whitespace is and not at the very start of the line  Aditionally it doesn t unnecessarily copy the whitespaces  but uses zooms   h  zs for help  to avoid this extra work  when commenting and indented line  Hope it helps some minimalists out there  Suggestions are welcome     these lines are needed for ToggleComment   autocmd FileType c cpp java      let b comment leader        autocmd FileType arduino         let b comment leader        autocmd FileType sh ruby python  let b comment leader       autocmd FileType zsh             let b comment leader       autocmd FileType conf fstab      let b comment leader       autocmd FileType matlab tex      let b comment leader       autocmd FileType vim             let b comment leader          l pos   -- gt  cursor position   l space -- gt  how many spaces we will use b comment leader        function  ToggleComment       if exists  b comment leader           let l pos   col              let l space      amp ft      v c cpp java arduino      3     2            if getline           v  s   t     b comment leader             let l space -    getline           v   zs    b comment leader      s   t         1   0               execute  silent s  v   s   t   zs   b comment leader        g              let l pos -  l space         else             exec  normal  0i   b comment leader                  let l pos    l space         endif         call cursor line       l pos      else         echo  no comment leader found for filetype      end endfunction  nnoremap  lt Leader gt t  call ToggleComment   lt CR gt  inoremap  lt Leader gt t  lt C-o gt  call ToggleComment   lt CR gt  xnoremap  lt Leader gt t    lt    gt call ToggleComment   lt CR gt

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I personally don t like a comment  toggle  function  as it will destroy comments wich are already included in the code  Also  I want to have the comment char appear on the far left  always  so I can easily see comment blocks  Also I want this to work nested  if I first comment out a block and later an enclosing block   Therefore  I slightly changed one of the solutions  I use F5 to comment and Shift-F5 to uncomment  Also  I added a  g at the end of the s  command   autocmd FileType c cpp java scala let b comment leader        autocmd FileType sh ruby python   let b comment leader       autocmd FileType conf fstab       let b comment leader       autocmd FileType tex              let b comment leader       autocmd FileType mail             let b comment leader     gt   autocmd FileType vim              let b comment leader       autocmd FileType nasm             let b comment leader        function  CommentLine       execute   silent  s             b comment leader      1 g  endfunction  function  UncommentLine       execute   silent  s      b comment leader       g  endfunction  map  lt F5 gt   call CommentLine   lt CR gt  map  lt S-F5 gt   call UncommentLine   lt CR gt

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Toggle comments  If all you need is toggle comments I d rather go with commentary vim by tpope     Installation  Pathogen   cd    vim bundle git clone git   github com tpope vim-commentary git   vim-plug   Plug  tpope vim-commentary    Vundle    Plugin  tpope vim-commentary    Further customization  Add this to your  vimrc file  noremap  lt leader gt    Commentary lt cr gt   You can now toggle comments by pressing Leader    just like Sublime and Atom

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For those tasks I use most of the time block selection   Put your cursor on the first   character  press CtrlV  or CtrlQ for gVim   and go down until the last commented line and press x  that will delete all the   characters vertically   For commenting a block of text is almost the same     First  go to the first line you want to comment  press CtrlV  This will put the editor in the VISUAL BLOCK mode  Then using the arrow key and select until the last line Now press ShiftI  which will put the editor in INSERT mode and then press    This will add a hash to the first line   Then press Esc  give it a second   and it will insert a   character on all other selected lines     For the stripped-down version of vim shipped with debian ubuntu by default  type   s     in the third step instead  any remaining highlighting of the first character of each line can be removed with  nohl    Here are two small screen recordings for visual reference   Comment    Uncomment

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s             g  remove the sapces between the characters and Use this command to comment  C or CPP files

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Press ctrl v then use   or   to select the number of lines to comment  Then press shift I  press   and then ESC  This will comment out the number of lines you have selected   The opposite for uncomment lines

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A few regular Vim commands do not work with my setup on Windows   Ctrl   v and Ctrl   q are some of them   I later discovered the following methods worked to uncomment lines  Given Some indented comments      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim      Practice in Vim  The following approaches remove the   symbol and preserve indents  Approaches Move the cursor to the first comment  arrows or h  j  k  l  Special Visual Mode  faster   Ctrl   Shift   v to enter special visual mode js to choose the vertical lines  l to include horizontal characters  optional  x to delete the block  Search Replace   Regex  Choose text with regular visual mode  i e  Shift   v Type     You ll get this prompt   lt    gt   Type regex  e g  s     substitutes the hash with nothing   Optional  type s      to include the space   Enter  g mode  Choose text with regular visual mode  i e  Shift   v Type     You ll get this prompt   lt    gt   Give a command  Type g   norm   x   Optional  type g   norm   xx to include the space   Enter  Results     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim     Practice in Vim  See Also  ThePrimeagen s tutorial on g commands  Post on removing indented comments Post on how to quickly comment w Vim

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I use EnhancedCommentify  It comments everything I needed  programming languages  scripts  config files   I use it with visual-mode bindings  Simply select text you want to comment and press co cc cd   vmap co  call EnhancedCommentify     guess   lt CR gt  vmap cc  call EnhancedCommentify     comment   lt CR gt  vmap cd  call EnhancedCommentify     decomment   lt CR gt

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To uncomment the whole file    Esc exits insert mode  gg goes to first char on first line ctrl V or ctrl shift v selects current char G or shift g goes to last line x deletes selection

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I like to use the tcomment plugin  http   www vim org scripts script php script id 1173  I have mapped gc and gcc to comment a line or a highlighted block of code  It detects the file type and works really well

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There are several vim plugins like Tcomment and nerdcommenter available    I use tcomment for commenting purposes   gcc  It will will toggle comment on the current line  v motion gc  It will toggle commenting a range of lines visually selected   Example  v3jgc will toggle region of 3 lines   These commands can work for working with comments in any language

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I use vim-multiple-cursors for this    To select the region  go to the first character of the first or last line of the region to be commented out by pressing 0  it s zero  not letter  o    Then press V and select the region using J  K or up and down arrow keys  Then put a virtual cursor on each line of the selection by pressing CtrlN  Then press I to simultaneously edit each line of the selection

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Here is how I do it     Go to first character on the first line you want to comment out  Hit Ctrl q in GVIM or Ctrl v in VIM  then go down to select first character on the lines to comment out   Then press c  and add the comment character    Uncommenting works the same way  just type a space instead of the comment character

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Sometimes I m shelled into a remote box where my plugins and  vimrc cannot help me  or sometimes NerdCommenter gets it wrong  eg JavaScript embedded inside HTML      In these cases a low-tech alternative is the built-in norm command  which just runs any arbitrary vim commands at each line in your specified range   For example   Commenting with     1  visually select the text rows  using V as usual  2   norm i    This inserts     at the start of each line   Note that when you type   the range will be filled in  so it will really look like    lt    gt norm i   Uncommenting     1  visually select the text as before  or type gv to re-select the previous selection  2   norm x   This deletes the first character of each line   If I had used a 2-char comment such as    then I d simply do  norm xx to delete both chars     If the comments are indented as in the OP s question  then you can anchor your deletion like this     norm  x   which means  go to the first non-space character  then delete one character   Note that unlike block selection  this technique works even if the comments have uneven indentation   Note  Since norm is literally just executing regular vim commands  you re not limited to comments  you could also do some complex editing to each line   If you need the escape character as part of your command sequence  type ctrl-v then hit the escape key  or even easier  just record a quick macro and then use norm to execute that macro on each line    Note 2  You could of course also add a mapping if you find yourself using norm a lot   Eg putting the following line in    vimrc lets you type ctrl-n instead of  norm after making your visual selection  vnoremap  lt C-n gt   norm   Note 3  Bare-bones vim sometimes doesn t have the norm command compiled into it  so be sure to use the beefed up version  ie typically  usr bin vim  not  bin vi   Thanks to  Manbroski and  rakslice for improvements incorporated into this answer

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To comment out blocks in vim    press Esc  to leave editing or other mode  hit ctrl v  visual block mode  use the     arrow keys to select lines you want  it won t highlight everything - it s OK   Shift i  capital I  insert the text you want  e g    press EscEsc     To uncomment blocks in vim    press Esc  to leave editing or other mode  hit ctrl v  visual block mode  use the     arrow keys to select the lines to uncomment    If you want to select multiple characters  use one or combine these methods    use the left right arrow keys to select more text to select chunks of text use shift       arrow key you can repeatedly push the delete keys below  like a regular delete button   press d or x to delete characters  repeatedly if necessary

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You can use vim-commentary by tpope  https   github com tpope vim-commentary  you can use it as following   Enter visual mode by pressing   v    Then press    j  repeatedly or e g 4j to select 4 row   Now all you have to do with the selection is enter keys    gc    This will comment out all the selection  to uncomment repead keys    gc

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I ve come up with a simple addition to my  vimrc file which works pretty well and can be extended easily  You simply add a new filetype to the comment map and its comment leader   I added a mapping to normal and visual modes  but you can remap to anything you like  I prefer only to have a  toggle  style function  One bears having multiple mappings etc    let s comment map               c                    cpp                    go                    java                    javascript                    lua    --            scala                    php                    python                 ruby                 rust                    sh                 desktop                 fstab                 conf                 profile                 bashrc                 bash profile                 mail     gt             eml     gt             bat    REM            ahk                 vim                 tex                 function  ToggleComment       if has key s comment map   amp filetype          let comment leader   s comment map  amp filetype          if getline             s     comment leader                      Uncomment the line             execute  silent s       s        comment leader        1           else              if getline             s     comment leader                   Uncomment the line                 execute  silent s       s        comment leader       1               else                   Comment the line                 execute  silent s       s       1    comment leader                    end         end     else         echo  No comment leader found for filetype      end endfunction   nnoremap  lt leader gt  lt Space gt   call ToggleComment   lt cr gt  vnoremap  lt leader gt  lt Space gt   call ToggleComment   lt cr gt    Note   I don t use any callbacks or hooks into the file types loading  because I find they slow down Vim s startup more than the  vimrc static function map does but that s just my preference  I ve also tried to keep it simple and performant  If you do use autocommands you need to be sure to put them in an autocommand group or else the callbacks get added to the filetype multiple times per-file loaded and cause a lot of performance degradation

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mark a text area by mark command say ma and mb type command    a  bg      s     1   You can see an example of this kind of test manipulation at http   bknpk ddns net my web VIM vim shell cmd on block html

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How to uncomment the following three lines in vi    code code  code  code code code   Place the cursor over the upper left   symbol and press CtrlV   This puts you in visual block mode   Press the down arrow or J three times to select all three lines   Then press D   All the comments disappear   To undo  press U    How to comment the following three lines in vi   code code code code code code   Place the cursor over the upper left character  press CtrlV   This puts you in visual block mode   Press   or J three times to select all three lines   Then press   I  Esc  That s a capital I      and Escape   When you press ESC  all the selected lines will get the comment symbol you specified

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This solution maps   to commenting and   to uncommenting  comment toggling using the single mapping is too complex to implement properly   It takes comment strings from VIM s builtin commentstring option which is populated from files like  usr share vim vim  ftplugin   vim if filetype plugin on is declared   filetype plugin on autocmd FileType   let b comment   split  amp commentstring    s   1  autocmd FileType   execute  map  lt silent gt   lt Leader gt    normal 0i    b comment 0      lt C-O gt      b comment 1      lt C-O gt 0 lt CR gt   autocmd FileType   execute  map  lt silent gt   lt Leader gt    normal      repeat  x   strlen b comment 1       0    strlen b comment 0      x lt CR gt

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With 30 answers ahead of me  I ll try to give an even easier solution  Insert a   at the beginning of the line  Then go down a line and press dot      To repeat  do j   j    etc   To uncomment  remove a    you can hit x over the     and do the reverse using k   etc

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Even though this question already has a ton of answers I still thought I would give a shoutout to a small plugin I wrote  commentify   Commentify uses the commentstring setting to decide how to comment out a block of code  so you don t have to keep a mapping of different comment types in your configuration  and supports both line based comments  eg      and block comments  eg            It also maps the same shortcut  defaults to ctrl c  for both commenting and uncommenting the block  so you don t have to remember two mappings or a complex set of commands

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If you already know the line numbers  then n ms      would work

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CMS s solution is the most  vim native  way to comment in out lines  In  CMS s second step  after CtrlV  you could also use r  to add comments or x to delete them  Drew Neil s Practical Vim  page 46  explains this technique well   Another good option is to use an ex mode command    range normali     Obviously  to save keystrokes with this one  you ll need to comment out 15  lines

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Use Control-V to select rectangles of text  go to the first   character  type Ctrl V  move right once  and then down  up to the end of the comments   Now type x  you re deleting all the   characters followed by one space

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I like            C ansi comments   so here it is my trick for you  You can adapt it to use in different cases  of course     Comment with             Select the text  go to the begin  start visual block  jump with       lt c-V gt     Type the command to be applied in the selection   norm i    lt c-v gt  lt esc gt  a      Command will look like     lt    gt norm i       a     See  i   for details     Uncomment the             Select the text  as before  or other way you like     lt c-V gt     Type the command to be applied in the selection   norm  s- s     s - lt c-v gt  lt enter gt  bbld    Command will look like     lt    gt norm  s- s     s - M bbld   See  ii   for details     Result   Effect is comments line by line   Comment block Comment block Comment block   Becomes  and vice-versa       Comment block       Comment block       Comment block        Its better to save it as some map or  reg in your  vimrc  because it s a lot to type  If you prefer a single    and    to the whole block  use   Comment with a single       the whole block  Save it in a register by recording with  say  qc  then  at the beginning of a paragraph to comment   v di       lt esc gt hhhp   and don t forget q again  to finish the record   See  iii   for details     Uncomment a single       from a block  Save it in register  say   u  Put your cursor anywhere inside the block  and        lt enter gt xx     lt enter gt xx   Save the register by finishing q command   See  iv   for details     Result   Effect is a single comment for multiple lines   Comment block Comment block Comment block   Becomes  and vice-versa       Comment block Comment block Comment block        Explanations   i   It works by using norm which applies the same command repeatedly in every selected line  The command simply insert a     finds the end of that line and finishes by inserting a      norm i    lt c-v gt  lt esc gt  a       ii   It also uses norm to repeat the search replace on every line  Search for spaces    spaces and replace by nothing  After that  finds the end of the line  back two words  right a letter  delete to the end    norm  s- s     s - lt c-v gt  lt enter gt  bbld     iii   Selects the paragraph by v   delete it  insert a comment open and close  move to its middle and paste the deleted block   v di       lt esc gt hhhp    iv   Anywhere in the middle  finds backwards a     deletes it  finds forward a     deletes it        lt enter gt xx     lt enter gt xx

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I use Tim Pope s vim-commentary plugin

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I mark the first and last lines  ma and mb   and then do   a  bs

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In VIM   1- Enter visual mode by presssing v   2- Use arrows to select the block you want to comment    3- Press     4- Type      s       To remove comments just replace step 4 with    4- Type  s

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I use vim 7 4 and this works for me  Assuming we are commenting uncommenting 3 lines    To comment    if the line has no tab space at the beginning   ctrl   V then jjj then shift   I  cappital i  then   then esc esc  if the line has tab space at the beginning you still can do the above or swap for c   ctrl   V then jjj then c then   then esc esc   To uncomment   if the lines have no tab space at the beginning   ctrl   V then jjj then ll  lower cap L  then c   if the lines have tab space at the beginning  then you space one over and esc  ctrl   V then jjj then ll  lower cap L  then c then space then esc

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Here s a basic one-liner based on the C-v followed by I method outlined above   This command   Comment  adds a chosen string to the beginning of any selected lines   command  -range -nargs 1 Comment  execute    lt    gt normal   lt C-v gt 0I     lt f-args gt      lt Esc gt  lt Esc gt     Add this line to your  vimrc to create a command that accepts a single argument and places the argument at the beginning of every line in the current selection   E g  if the following text is selected   1 2   and you run this   Comment     the result will be     1   2

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This simple snippet is from my  vimrc   function  CommentToggle       execute   silent  s                1       execute   silent  s                    1   endfunction  map  lt F7 gt   call CommentToggle   lt CR gt    It s for   -Comments  but you can adapt it easily for other characters  You could use autocmd to set a leader as jqno suggested   This is a very simple and efficient way working with ranges and visual mode naturally

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There is this life changing plugin by tpope called vim-commentary  https   github com tpope vim-commentary  This plugin provides    Sanity Properly indented comments Does not comment out empty unnecessary lines   Usage    Install via Vundle  or Pathogen I guess   Highlight your text and press   which will show as   lt    gt  Type Commentary here   lt    gt Commentary and press Enter  Boom  Your done bud

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Here is a section of my  vimrc    insert and remove comments in visual and normal mode vmap  ic  s     g lt CR gt  let         lt CR gt  map   ic  s     g lt CR gt  let         lt CR gt  vmap  rc  s     g lt CR gt  let         lt CR gt  map   rc  s     g lt CR gt  let         lt CR gt    In normal and in visual mode  this lets me press  ic to insert comments and rc to remove comments

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I have the following in my  vimrc     Commenting blocks of code  augroup commenting blocks of code   autocmd    autocmd FileType c cpp java scala let b comment leader           autocmd FileType sh ruby python   let b comment leader          autocmd FileType conf fstab       let b comment leader          autocmd FileType tex              let b comment leader          autocmd FileType mail             let b comment leader     gt      autocmd FileType vim              let b comment leader        augroup END noremap  lt silent gt   cc   lt C-B gt silent  lt C-E gt s    lt C-R gt  escape b comment leader       lt CR gt   lt CR gt  nohlsearch lt CR gt  noremap  lt silent gt   cu   lt C-B gt silent  lt C-E gt s   V lt C-R gt  escape b comment leader       lt CR gt   e lt CR gt  nohlsearch lt CR gt    Now you can type  cc to comment a line and  cu to uncomment a line  works both in normal and visual mode     I stole it from some website many years ago so I can t completely explain how it works anymore     There is a comment where it is explained

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Very good question  but not so many good answers imho  First  I would say  using block insert mode is not an easy solution here  just too many keystrokes  so obviously it must work on selected lines to improve performance of code editing  Another point which nobody mentions   where the comment sign should be put - in the very beginning of the line or before actual text  It is a matter of taste probably  but my opinion  it should be put before the text to keep the code readable  when the comment sign is put in the very line beginning it breaks the visual consistence of indented code  so it looks like a bulleted list  With that in mind  I ve ended up with following solution  I make example for   comment   In my vimrc   vnoremap 1  s     s         t      1  2 e lt CR gt  vnoremap 2  s     s       s     1 2 e lt CR gt    Key 1 inserts   before the text  after white space  in every selected line  It checks if there is already    not to insert   twice  And also ignores empty lines  Key 2 deletes one    It also keeps the comments on the right side of line safe     Update  here is an example  how to make file type dependent toggle comment command  To learn more about these thing read  http   learnvimscriptthehardway stevelosh com chapters 14 html    Just to make it work  put the following lines in your  vimrc file        build the whole regex search replace command function  Build       let b Comment ON     lt     gt s     s        t      1    b cs     2 e      let b Comment OFF     lt     gt s     s       b cs       s     1 2 e  endfunction    run this group on Filetype event augroup SetCS     autocmd       default comment sign     autocmd FileType   let b cs  --       detect file type and assign comment sign     autocmd FileType python ruby let b cs         autocmd FileType c cpp java javascript php let b cs              autocmd FileType vim let b cs         autocmd FileType   call Build   augroup END  vnoremap 1   lt C-u gt execute b Comment ON lt CR gt  vnoremap 2   lt C-u gt execute b Comment OFF lt CR gt

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I use the NERD Commenter script  It lets you easily comment  uncomment or toggle comments in your code   As mentioned in the comments      for anyone who is confused by the usage  default leader is     so 10 cc will comment ten lines and 10 cu will uncomment those ten lines

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Specify which lines to comment in vim   Reveal the line numbers    set number   then    5 17s          this will comment out line 5-17   or this     s             will comment out all lines in file

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To Comment A Line  For All Languages         noremap  lt silent gt       call  CommentLine    lt CR gt    We can call it with number of lines and in visual mode too  it works  Like   To comment four lines use  4    and to uncomment use 4      To Uncomment A Line  For All Languages      noremap  lt silent gt      call  UnCommentLine    lt CR gt    If You want to add new symbol comment  then add a list and add some lines in function  If you want to add a language that has the comment symbol that already defined in one of the lists just add your language name in the corresponding list  To Get correct name  Open your file in vim and use   set ft  to get the correct name for your language        Definition of CommentLine     function  CommentLine         let slash ft list     c     cpp    java    scala     systemverilog     verilog     verilog systemverilog         let hash ft list      sh     ruby     python     csh     conf     fstab     perl         let perct ft list     tex         let mail ft list      mail         let quote ft list     vim         if  index slash ft list   amp ft     -1            norm I         elseif  index hash ft list   amp ft     -1            norm I        elseif  index perct ft list   amp ft     -1            norm I        elseif  index mail ft list   amp ft     -1            norm I gt        elseif  index quote ft list   amp ft     -1            norm I        endif endfunction     Definition of UnCommentLine     function  UnCommentLine       let slash ft list     c     cpp    java    scala     systemverilog     verilog     verilog systemverilog       let hash ft list      sh     ruby     python     csh     conf     fstab     perl       let perct ft list     tex       let mail ft list      mail       let quote ft list     vim       if  index slash ft list   amp ft     -1          norm  2x     elseif  index hash ft list   amp ft     -1          norm  x     elseif  index perct ft list   amp ft     -1          norm  x     elseif  index mail ft list   amp ft     -1          norm  x     elseif  index quote ft list   amp ft     -1          norm  x     endif endfunction

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comment  cc  and uncomment  cu  code  noremap    lt silent gt  cc       s     s        t      1   e lt CR gt  nohls lt CR gt zvj noremap    lt silent gt  cu       s     s      s     1 e lt CR gt  nohls lt CR gt zvj   You can comment uncomment single or multiple lines with    To do multiple lines  select the lines then type cc cu shortcut  or type a number then cc cu  e g  7cc will comment 7 lines from the cursor    I got the orignal code from the person on What  39 s the most elegant way of commenting   uncommenting blocks of ruby code in Vim  and made some small changes  changed shortcut keys  and added a space after the

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Yes  there are 33  mostly repetitive  answers already to this question   Here is another approach to how to comment lines out in Vim  motions    The basic idea is to comment or uncomment lines out using the same method as yanking a paragraph by typing yip or deleting 2 lines by typing dj   This approach will let you do things like    ccj to comment the next 2 lines out  and cuk to uncomment them  cci  to comment a block out  and cui  to uncomment it  ccip to comment a whole paragraph out  and cuip to uncomment it  ccG to comment everything out down to the last line  and cugg to uncomment everything up to the first line    All you need are 2 functions that operate over motions  and 2 mappings for each function  First  the mappings   nnoremap  lt silent gt  cc   set opfunc CommentOut lt cr gt g  vnoremap  lt silent gt  cc    lt c-u gt call  CommentOut visualmode    1  lt cr gt  nnoremap  lt silent gt  cu   set opfunc Uncomment lt cr gt g  vnoremap  lt silent gt  cu    lt c-u gt call  Uncomment visualmode    1  lt cr gt     See the manual about the g  operator and the operatorfunc variable    And now the functions   function  CommentOut type         if a 0     silent exe  normal      lt    gt s       lt cr gt   lt     else     silent exe  normal         s       lt cr gt       endif endfunction  function  Uncomment type         if a 0     silent exe  normal      lt    gt s       s        1   lt cr gt   lt     else     silent exe  normal         s       s        1   lt cr gt       endif endfunction   Modify the regular expressions above to suit your taste as to where the   should be

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I combined Phil and jqno s answer and made untoggle comments with spaces  autocmd FileType c cpp java scala let b comment leader        autocmd FileType sh ruby python   let b comment leader       autocmd FileType conf fstab       let b comment leader       autocmd FileType tex              let b comment leader       autocmd FileType mail             let b comment leader     gt   autocmd FileType vim              let b comment leader     quot   function  CommentToggle       execute   silent  s              escape b comment leader            1       execute   silent  s            escape b comment leader                 escape b comment leader               1   endfunction map  lt F7 gt   call CommentToggle   lt CR gt   how it works  Lets assume we work with  -comments  The first command s             1  searches for the first non-space character      and replaces that with    itself  The itself-replacement is done by the        in the search-pattern and  1 in the replacement-pattern  The second command s                  1  searches for lines starting with a double comment                  accepting 0 or 1 spaces in between comments  and replaces those simply with the non-comment part         meaning the same number of preceeding spaces   For more details about vim patterns check this out

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The quickest and the most intuitive method of them all is to remap   for walk-down-commenting of lines  and then   for walk-up-uncommenting  Try it and you won t go back   In Ruby or Bash  with 2-space indents   map   I   lt Esc gt j map   k 2x   In C C   or PHP  with 4-space indents   map   I     lt Esc gt j map   k 4x   Downsides are that you lose   and   for sentence-movement  but das can fill in there   and you ll occasionally fall back on select-and-replace or CtrlV for handling long sections  But that s pretty rare   And for C-style  the long comments are best handled with   set cindent set formatoptions tcqr       Which combines well with using V move gq to redo the word-wrapping

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This answer is most useful if you are unable to install plugins but you still want your comment characters to follow existing indentation levels   This answer is here to 1  show the correct code to paste into a  vimrc to get vim 7 4  to do block commenting uncommenting while keeping indentation level with 1 shortcut in visual mode and 2  to explain it   Here is the code    let b commentChar      autocmd BufNewFile BufReadPost    ch     let b commentChar      autocmd BufNewFile BufReadPost   cpp    let b commentChar      autocmd BufNewFile BufReadPost   py    let b commentChar     autocmd BufNewFile BufReadPost    sh    let b commentChar     function  Docomment       make comments on all the lines we ve grabbed   execute     lt     gt s   s   amp   escape b commentChar           e  endfunction function  Uncomment       uncomment on all our lines   execute     lt     gt s  v   s    escape b commentChar          v s   1 e  endfunction function  Comment       does the first line begin with a comment    let l line getpos    lt    1     if there s a match   if match getline l line      s   b commentChar  gt -1     call Uncomment     else     call Docomment     endif endfunction vnoremap  lt silent gt   lt C-r gt    lt C-u gt call Comment   lt cr gt  lt cr gt    How it works    let b commentChar        This creates a variable in vim  the b here refers to the scope  which in this case is contained to the buffer  meaning the currently opened file  Your comment characters are strings and need to be wrapped in quotes  the quotes are not part of what will be substituted in when toggling comments  autocmd BufNewFile BufReadPost        Autocommands trigger on different things  in this case  these are triggering when a new file or the read file ends with a certain extension  Once triggered  the execute the following command  which allows us to change the commentChar depending on filetype  There are other ways to do this  but they are more confusing to novices  like me   function  Docomment     Functions are declared by starting with function and ending with endfunction  Functions must start with a capital  the   ensures that this function overwrites any previous functions defined as Docomment   with this version of Docomment    Without the    I had errors  but that might be because I was defining new functions through the vim command line  execute     lt     gt s   s   amp   escape b commentChar           e    Execute calls a command  In this case  we are executing substitute  which can take a range  by default this is the current line  such as   for the whole buffer or   lt    gt  for the highlighted section    s  is regex to match the start of a line followed by any amount of whitespace  which is then appended to  due to  amp    The   here is used for string concatenation  since escape   can t be wrapped in quotes  escape   allows you to escape character in commentChar that matches the arguments  in this case    and    by prepending them with a    After this  we concatenate again with the end of our substitute string  which has the e flag  This flag lets us fail silently  meaning that if we do not find a match on a given line  we won t yell about it  As a whole  this line lets us put a comment character followed by a space just before the first text  meaning we keep our indentation level  execute     lt     gt s  v   s    escape b commentChar          v s   1 e    This is similar to our last huge long command  Unique to this one  we have  v  which makes sure that we don t have to escape our     and 1  which refers to the group we made with our     Basically  we re matching a line that starts with any amount of whitespace and then our comment character followed by any amount of whitespace  and we are only keeping the first set of whitespace  Again  e lets us fail silently if we don t have a comment character on that line  let l line getpos    lt    1    this sets a variable much like we did with our comment character  but l refers to the local scope  local to this function   getpos   gets the position of  in this case  the start of our highlighting  and the  1  means we only care about the line number  not other things like the column number  if match getline l line      s   b commentChar  gt -1   you know how if works  match   checks if the first thing contains the second thing  so we grab the line that we started our highlighting on  and check if it starts with whitespace followed by our comment character  match   returns the index where this is true  and -1 if no matches were found  Since if evaluates all nonzero numbers to be true  we have to compare our output to see if it s greater than -1  Comparison in vim returns 0 if false and 1 if true  which is what if wants to see to evaluate correctly  vnoremap  lt silent gt   lt C-r gt    lt C-u gt call Comment   lt cr gt  lt cr gt    vnoremap means map the following command in visual mode  but don t map it recursively  meaning don t change any other commands that might use  in other ways   Basically  if you re a vim novice  always use noremap to make sure you don t break things   lt silent gt  means  I don t want your words  just your actions  and tells it not to print anything to the command line   lt C-r gt  is the thing we re mapping  which is ctrl r in this case  note that you can still use C-r normally for  redo  in normal mode with this mapping   C-u is kinda confusing  but basically it makes sure you don t lose track of your visual highlighting  according to this answer it makes your command start with   lt    gt  which is what we want   call here just tells vim to execute the function we named  and  lt cr gt  refers to hitting the enter button  We have to hit it once to actually call the function  otherwise we ve just typed call function   on the command line  and we have to hit it again to get our substitutes to go through all the way  not really sure why  but whatever      Anyway  hopefully this helps  This will take anything highlighted with v  V  or C-v  check if the first line is commented  if yes  try to uncomment all highlighted lines  and if not  add an extra layer of comment characters to each line  This is my desired behavior  I did not just want it to toggle whether each line in the block was commented or not  so it works perfectly for me after asking multiple questions on the subject

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I personally wanted commenting a-la Visual Studio  I ve gotten so used to it at work that it has taken over my muscle memory  using vsvim   Use shift v select lines you want and then press ctrl k  ctrl c to comment or Ctrl k  Ctrl u to uncomment    vnoremap  lt C-k gt  lt C-c gt   norm i   lt Cr gt   vnoremap  lt C-k gt  lt C-u gt   s       g lt Cr gt  noh lt Cr gt

[vim] What's a quick way to comment/uncomment lines in Vim?

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