How to use macros in Vim

Note#60

notes
Published

2023-04-07

Record a macro

  1. Press q followed by a letter to start recording.
  2. Perform the desired operations.
  3. Press q again to stop recording.

Running a macro

  1. Press @ followed by the letter of the macro.
  2. Press @@ to run the last executed macro again.

Apply a macro to a set of lines

  1. In visual mode, select the lines.
  2. Press : followed by normal @ and the letter of the macro.

Viewing a macro

  1. Type :registers or :reg to see the contents of all registers.
  2. Type :reg <letter> to see the contents of a specific register.

Saving a macro

  1. Type :let @<letter>='macro_contents', replacing <letter> with the register and macro_contents with the actual content of the macro.
  2. To insert the contents of an existing macro, type :let @<letter>=' and then press Ctrl-R Ctrl-R <letter> to insert the contents literally.
  3. Add the above line to your .vimrc file to load the macro automatically when Vim starts.

Appending to a macro

  1. Press q followed by the capital letter of the macro to start appending.
  2. Perform the additional operations.
  3. Press q again to stop appending.

Editing a macro

  1. Paste the macro contents into a new buffer or just a blank line using "ap (replace ‘a’ with the appropriate letter).
  2. Edit the macro as needed.
  3. Yank the modified macro back into the register using "ay$ (replace ‘a’ with the appropriate letter). Compared to "ayy, this will avoid yanking a trailing newline character.