4 ms·

Out of curiosity, what kind of macros do you run in vim?

by cpach 10y ago

tombert 10y ago
A very common thing that happens to me is that I have to take big blocks of JSON, and map all the keys and values into something else, like HTML or CSV. Without macros, this traditionally involves a lot of copy-paste-change-stuff repetition. With a Vim macro, I can happily just do this once, assign it to a register, and repeat as needed, and even store it for later reuse if I want. There are also, littler things, like jumping between HTML tags, or bulk-indents. What makes Vim's macros better (in my opinion) that other editor's macros is that fact that they're simply stored in copy-paste registers, meaning that you can have many of them, store in a different file, copy them off the internet, or compose them together.
devopsproject 10y ago
Not op but here they are really handy for creating and formatting repetitive code blocks. I find it particular useful when making testing\throwaway code. For example, I may be testing a function and wanting to test a few scenarios on many IDs. So I will create a csv list of numbers and then use a macro to format it your csv string will be like this (normally much longer) 134,234,367,4345 Then record the macro: - type "myFunction(" - type ctrl + right arrow (this moves the cursor to after the comma) - type backspace - type ");" - type enter key then run stop recording and run the macro. It will produce: myFunction(134); myFunction(234); myFunction(367); myFunction(4345); Which doesn't seem like a big time saver over regular copy and pasting. And you could have iterated over the csv string with a for loop. This is probably a really contrived and basic example but you find yourself thinking about using a macro anytime you have to do the same keystrokes over and over.
tspike 10y ago
It's ancient now, but I put together a video 4 years ago demonstrating a simple macro task: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfBWg8bVTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfBWg8bVTQ
dasil003 10y ago
My favorite use of macros is as a sort of progressive global search and replace on steroids. I have @q bound to Space, so I can record a macro with qq, then hit space to repeat. Since the macro is just a list of commands in a register I can copy it out and edit it to tweak it, once I'm happy with it over a few lines I can make it recursive by adding @q to the end of it. Compared to regex search and replace this is much more malleable, interactive, and ultimately powerful.
- fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
  It's worth remembering that . (i.e. dot) repeats the last edit command. vim-repeat ( https://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat https://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat ) makes this even better. Although, there are still several situations where macros are better, especially things that involve several motions and edits. (I tend to use qw because w is more convenient to hit after @). Also, it's occasionally useful to remember that you can use the double quote character " to paste a macro, edit it and then update it. i.e. ( "ep .... edit ... ^"ed$ )
- fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
  Also, vim-surround is one of those things that, once you've used it for a while, it's impossible to think of editing text without it: https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround
  - dasil003 10y ago
    Any vim user can profit from visiting https://github.com/tpope?q=vim&tab=repositories https://github.com/tpope?q=vim&tab=repositories and trying any one that looks vaguely interesting.
- mkingston 10y ago
  Somewhere between the default and your binding: @@ repeats the last macro. So you can record your macro, go to your search text, @q, n, then for all subsequent matches @@.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
I had a recent refactor which was basically "take a 5-argument function call split over many lines and replace it with a different 1-argument call". I made a macro that found the code block I wanted, edited it to the desired syntax, saved the file, and opened the next file in the list I had opened. I opened vim for this occasion with `vim $(ag -l STRING_IN_REFACTORED_CODE)`, which used search results as a list of files to open with vim. The most fun vim macro I've made solved a "solve this puzzle before we want to interview you" question. The problem was a URL to request that gave you a response to parse into the next URL, chained about 100 times. The vim macro took the URL in the current line, shelled out to make a network request for the result of `curl` with that line as an argument, and edited the result into the next URL to fetch.
- asymmetric 10y ago
  Was the puzzle for Rainforest?
flukus 10y ago
A common one is "here's an excel file, can you put these entries in the database". With macros it's easy to do a really complex transform of a line and then repeat it for every line.
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
  Or the reverse, someone wants a report from some database in some specific format for whatever reason. It's often easier to do a simply query and vim the output rather than use the string functions of the DB.

Out of curiosity, what kind of macros do you run in vim?

by cpach 10y ago

Out of curiosity, what kind of macros do you run in vim?

A very common thing that happens to me is that I have to take big blocks of JSON, and map all the keys and values into something else, like HTML or CSV. Without macros, this traditionally involves a lot of copy-paste-change-stuff repetition. With a Vim macro, I can happily just do this once, assign it to a register, and repeat as needed, and even store it for later reuse if I want. There are also, littler things, like jumping between HTML tags, or bulk-indents. What makes Vim's macros better (in my opinion) that other editor's macros is that fact that they're simply stored in copy-paste registers, meaning that you can have many of them, store in a different file, copy them off the internet, or compose them together.

devopsproject 10y ago

Not op but here they are really handy for creating and formatting repetitive code blocks. I find it particular useful when making testing\throwaway code. For example, I may be testing a function and wanting to test a few scenarios on many IDs. So I will create a csv list of numbers and then use a macro to format it your csv string will be like this (normally much longer) 134,234,367,4345 Then record the macro: - type "myFunction(" - type ctrl + right arrow (this moves the cursor to after the comma) - type backspace - type ");" - type enter key then run stop recording and run the macro. It will produce: myFunction(134); myFunction(234); myFunction(367); myFunction(4345); Which doesn't seem like a big time saver over regular copy and pasting. And you could have iterated over the csv string with a for loop. This is probably a really contrived and basic example but you find yourself thinking about using a macro anytime you have to do the same keystrokes over and over.

tspike 10y ago

It's ancient now, but I put together a video 4 years ago demonstrating a simple macro task: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfBWg8bVTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfBWg8bVTQ

dasil003 10y ago

My favorite use of macros is as a sort of progressive global search and replace on steroids. I have @q bound to Space, so I can record a macro with qq, then hit space to repeat. Since the macro is just a list of commands in a register I can copy it out and edit it to tweak it, once I'm happy with it over a few lines I can make it recursive by adding @q to the end of it. Compared to regex search and replace this is much more malleable, interactive, and ultimately powerful.

fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
It's worth remembering that . (i.e. dot) repeats the last edit command. vim-repeat ( https://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat https://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat ) makes this even better. Although, there are still several situations where macros are better, especially things that involve several motions and edits. (I tend to use qw because w is more convenient to hit after @). Also, it's occasionally useful to remember that you can use the double quote character " to paste a macro, edit it and then update it. i.e. ( "ep .... edit ... ^"ed$ )
fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
Also, vim-surround is one of those things that, once you've used it for a while, it's impossible to think of editing text without it: https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround
- dasil003 10y ago
  Any vim user can profit from visiting https://github.com/tpope?q=vim&tab=repositories https://github.com/tpope?q=vim&tab=repositories and trying any one that looks vaguely interesting.
mkingston 10y ago
Somewhere between the default and your binding: @@ repeats the last macro. So you can record your macro, go to your search text, @q, n, then for all subsequent matches @@.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

I had a recent refactor which was basically "take a 5-argument function call split over many lines and replace it with a different 1-argument call". I made a macro that found the code block I wanted, edited it to the desired syntax, saved the file, and opened the next file in the list I had opened. I opened vim for this occasion with `vim $(ag -l STRING_IN_REFACTORED_CODE)`, which used search results as a list of files to open with vim. The most fun vim macro I've made solved a "solve this puzzle before we want to interview you" question. The problem was a URL to request that gave you a response to parse into the next URL, chained about 100 times. The vim macro took the URL in the current line, shelled out to make a network request for the result of `curl` with that line as an argument, and edited the result into the next URL to fetch.

asymmetric 10y ago
Was the puzzle for Rainforest?

flukus 10y ago

A common one is "here's an excel file, can you put these entries in the database". With macros it's easy to do a really complex transform of a line and then repeat it for every line.

2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
Or the reverse, someone wants a report from some database in some specific format for whatever reason. It's often easier to do a simply query and vim the output rather than use the string functions of the DB.