How to insert text at beginning of a multi-line selection in vi Vim

Question

In Vim  how do I  insert characters at the beginning of each line in a selection   For instance   I want to comment out a block of code by prepending    at the beginning of each line assuming my language s comment system doesn t allow block commenting like         How would I do this

User · Answer

I can recommend the EnhCommentify plugin.

eg. put this to your vimrc:

let maplocalleader=','
vmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>VisualTraditional
nmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>Traditional
let g:EnhCommentifyBindInInsert = 'No'
let g:EnhCommentifyMultiPartBlocks = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyPretty = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyRespectIndent = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyUseBlockIndent = 'Yes'

you can then comment/uncomment the (selected) lines with ',c'

User · Answer

If you want to get super fancy about it  put this in your  vimrc   vmap  c  s       lt CR gt  vmap  u  s       lt CR gt    Then  whenever in visual mode  you can hit  c to comment the block and  u to uncomment it  Of course  you can change those shortcut keystrokes to whatever

User · Answer

Another way that might be easier for newcomers    some    code  here   Place the cursor on the first line  e g  by  gg  and type the following to get into insert mode and add your text   I     Space        some  code  here   Press Esc to get back to command mode and use the digraph   j   j        some     code      here   j is a motion command to go down one line and   repeats the last editing command you made

User · Answer

To insert  ABC  at the begining of each line   1  Go to command mode  2     norm I ABC

User · Answer

And yet another way    Move to the beginning of a line enter Visual Block mode  CTRL-v  select the lines you want  moving up down with j k  or jumping to a line with  line G  press I  that s capital i  type the comment character s  press ESC

User · Answer

Press Esc to enter  command mode  Use Ctrl V to enter visual block mode Move Up Downto select the columns of text in the lines you want to comment  Then hit Shift i and type the text you want to insert  Then hit Esc  wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line    For further information and reading  check out  Inserting text in multiple lines  in the Vim Tips Wiki

User · Answer

I can recommend the EnhCommentify plugin.

eg. put this to your vimrc:

let maplocalleader=','
vmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>VisualTraditional
nmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>Traditional
let g:EnhCommentifyBindInInsert = 'No'
let g:EnhCommentifyMultiPartBlocks = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyPretty = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyRespectIndent = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyUseBlockIndent = 'Yes'

you can then comment/uncomment the (selected) lines with ',c'

User · Answer

This replaces the beginning of each line with          s         This replaces the beginning of each selected line  use visual mode to select  with           lt    gt s         Note that gv  in normal mode  restores the last visual selection  this comes in handy from time to time

User · Answer

If you want to get super fancy about it  put this in your  vimrc   vmap  c  s       lt CR gt  vmap  u  s       lt CR gt    Then  whenever in visual mode  you can hit  c to comment the block and  u to uncomment it  Of course  you can change those shortcut keystrokes to whatever

User · Answer

And yet another way    Move to the beginning of a line enter Visual Block mode  CTRL-v  select the lines you want  moving up down with j k  or jumping to a line with  line G  press I  that s capital i  type the comment character s  press ESC

User · Answer

For commenting blocks of code  I like the NERD Commenter plugin   Select some text   Shift-V    select the lines of text you want to comment       Comment    cc   Uncomment    cu   Or just toggle the comment state of a line or block    c lt space gt

User · Answer

Another way that might be easier for newcomers    some    code  here   Place the cursor on the first line  e g  by  gg  and type the following to get into insert mode and add your text   I     Space        some  code  here   Press Esc to get back to command mode and use the digraph   j   j        some     code      here   j is a motion command to go down one line and   repeats the last editing command you made

User · Answer

This replaces the beginning of each line with          s         This replaces the beginning of each selected line  use visual mode to select  with           lt    gt s         Note that gv  in normal mode  restores the last visual selection  this comes in handy from time to time

User · Answer

Mark the area to be comment as a visual block   lt C-V   and do c  lt ESC gt p   change it to     put it back   If you do it often  define a short cut  example  q  in your  vimrc   vmap  q c  lt ESC gt p

User · Answer

Yet another way       lt    gt g   norm I         is just a dummy pattern to match every line   norm lets you run the normal-mode commands that follow   I   says to enter insert-mode while jumping the cursor to the beginning of the line  then insert the following text  two slashes       g is often handy for doing something complex on multiple lines  where you may want to jump between multiple modes  delete or add lines  move the cursor around  run a bunch of macros  etc   And you can tell it to operate only on lines that match a pattern

User · Answer

I can recommend the EnhCommentify plugin.

eg. put this to your vimrc:

let maplocalleader=','
vmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>VisualTraditional
nmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>Traditional
let g:EnhCommentifyBindInInsert = 'No'
let g:EnhCommentifyMultiPartBlocks = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyPretty = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyRespectIndent = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyUseBlockIndent = 'Yes'

you can then comment/uncomment the (selected) lines with ',c'

User · Answer

This adds   at the beginning of every line     s        And people will stop complaining about your lack of properly commenting scripts

User · Answer

Press Esc to enter  command mode  Use Ctrl V to enter visual block mode Move Up Downto select the columns of text in the lines you want to comment  Then hit Shift i and type the text you want to insert  Then hit Esc  wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line    For further information and reading  check out  Inserting text in multiple lines  in the Vim Tips Wiki

User · Answer

Yet another way       lt    gt g   norm I         is just a dummy pattern to match every line   norm lets you run the normal-mode commands that follow   I   says to enter insert-mode while jumping the cursor to the beginning of the line  then insert the following text  two slashes       g is often handy for doing something complex on multiple lines  where you may want to jump between multiple modes  delete or add lines  move the cursor around  run a bunch of macros  etc   And you can tell it to operate only on lines that match a pattern

User · Answer

Press Esc to enter  command mode  Use Ctrl V to enter visual block mode Move Up Downto select the columns of text in the lines you want to comment  Then hit Shift i and type the text you want to insert  Then hit Esc  wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line    For further information and reading  check out  Inserting text in multiple lines  in the Vim Tips Wiki

User · Answer

The general pattern for search and replace is    s search replace    Replaces the first occurrence of  search  with  replace  for current line   s search replace g   Replaces all occurrences of  search  with  replace  for current line   g  is short for  global   This command will replace each occurrence of  search  with  replace  for the current line only   The   is used to search over the whole file   To confirm each replacement interactively append a  c  for confirm     s search replace c   Interactive confirm replacing  search  with  replace  for the entire file  Instead of the   character you can use a line number range  note that the     character is a special search character for the start of line     14 20s        Inserts a     character at the start of lines 14-20  If you want to use another comment character  like     then change your command delimiter    14 20s         Inserts a      character sequence at the start of lines 14-20  Or you can always just escape the    characters like    14 20s           Inserts a      character sequence at the start of lines 14-20  If you are not seeing line numbers in your editor  simply type the following   set nu

User · Answer

I can recommend the EnhCommentify plugin.

eg. put this to your vimrc:

let maplocalleader=','
vmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>VisualTraditional
nmap <silent> <LocalLeader>c <Plug>Traditional
let g:EnhCommentifyBindInInsert = 'No'
let g:EnhCommentifyMultiPartBlocks = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyPretty = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyRespectIndent = 'Yes'
let g:EnhCommentifyUseBlockIndent = 'Yes'

you can then comment/uncomment the (selected) lines with ',c'

User · Answer

To insert  ABC  at the begining of each line   1  Go to command mode  2     norm I ABC

User · Answer

Mark the area to be comment as a visual block   lt C-V   and do c  lt ESC gt p   change it to     put it back   If you do it often  define a short cut  example  q  in your  vimrc   vmap  q c  lt ESC gt p

User · Answer

This replaces the beginning of each line with          s         This replaces the beginning of each selected line  use visual mode to select  with           lt    gt s         Note that gv  in normal mode  restores the last visual selection  this comes in handy from time to time

User · Answer

In case someone s multi-line-selection is actually a paragraph  there is no need to manually select the lines  vim can do that for you    vip  select and mark the whole paragraph shift-i  insert text at line beginning escape  leave insert mode enter normal mode  line beginnings still selected  escape  unselect line beginnings

User · Answer

The general pattern for search and replace is    s search replace    Replaces the first occurrence of  search  with  replace  for current line   s search replace g   Replaces all occurrences of  search  with  replace  for current line   g  is short for  global   This command will replace each occurrence of  search  with  replace  for the current line only   The   is used to search over the whole file   To confirm each replacement interactively append a  c  for confirm     s search replace c   Interactive confirm replacing  search  with  replace  for the entire file  Instead of the   character you can use a line number range  note that the     character is a special search character for the start of line     14 20s        Inserts a     character at the start of lines 14-20  If you want to use another comment character  like     then change your command delimiter    14 20s         Inserts a      character sequence at the start of lines 14-20  Or you can always just escape the    characters like    14 20s           Inserts a      character sequence at the start of lines 14-20  If you are not seeing line numbers in your editor  simply type the following   set nu

User · Answer

And yet another way    Move to the beginning of a line enter Visual Block mode  CTRL-v  select the lines you want  moving up down with j k  or jumping to a line with  line G  press I  that s capital i  type the comment character s  press ESC

User · Answer

If you want to get super fancy about it  put this in your  vimrc   vmap  c  s       lt CR gt  vmap  u  s       lt CR gt    Then  whenever in visual mode  you can hit  c to comment the block and  u to uncomment it  Of course  you can change those shortcut keystrokes to whatever

User · Answer

This adds   at the beginning of every line     s        And people will stop complaining about your lack of properly commenting scripts

User · Answer

This replaces the beginning of each line with          s         This replaces the beginning of each selected line  use visual mode to select  with           lt    gt s         Note that gv  in normal mode  restores the last visual selection  this comes in handy from time to time

User · Answer

Yet another way       lt    gt g   norm I         is just a dummy pattern to match every line   norm lets you run the normal-mode commands that follow   I   says to enter insert-mode while jumping the cursor to the beginning of the line  then insert the following text  two slashes       g is often handy for doing something complex on multiple lines  where you may want to jump between multiple modes  delete or add lines  move the cursor around  run a bunch of macros  etc   And you can tell it to operate only on lines that match a pattern

User · Answer

For commenting blocks of code  I like the NERD Commenter plugin   Select some text   Shift-V    select the lines of text you want to comment       Comment    cc   Uncomment    cu   Or just toggle the comment state of a line or block    c lt space gt

User · Answer

And yet another way    Move to the beginning of a line enter Visual Block mode  CTRL-v  select the lines you want  moving up down with j k  or jumping to a line with  line G  press I  that s capital i  type the comment character s  press ESC

User · Answer

Yet another way       lt    gt g   norm I         is just a dummy pattern to match every line   norm lets you run the normal-mode commands that follow   I   says to enter insert-mode while jumping the cursor to the beginning of the line  then insert the following text  two slashes       g is often handy for doing something complex on multiple lines  where you may want to jump between multiple modes  delete or add lines  move the cursor around  run a bunch of macros  etc   And you can tell it to operate only on lines that match a pattern

User · Answer

In case someone s multi-line-selection is actually a paragraph  there is no need to manually select the lines  vim can do that for you    vip  select and mark the whole paragraph shift-i  insert text at line beginning escape  leave insert mode enter normal mode  line beginnings still selected  escape  unselect line beginnings

User · Answer

If you want to get super fancy about it  put this in your  vimrc   vmap  c  s       lt CR gt  vmap  u  s       lt CR gt    Then  whenever in visual mode  you can hit  c to comment the block and  u to uncomment it  Of course  you can change those shortcut keystrokes to whatever

User · Answer

Press Esc to enter  command mode  Use Ctrl V to enter visual block mode Move Up Downto select the columns of text in the lines you want to comment  Then hit Shift i and type the text you want to insert  Then hit Esc  wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line    For further information and reading  check out  Inserting text in multiple lines  in the Vim Tips Wiki

[vim] How to insert text at beginning of a multi-line selection in vi/Vim

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