vim: How do I replace a character under my cursor with previously yanked text (more than once)?

31,470

Solution 1

What about s<C-r>0, this can be repeated with .

  • s deletes the character under the curser and puts you into insert mode.
  • <C-r>0 inserts register 0, which holds the yanked text.

You can also use s and type foo manually, which is also repeatable with .

Solution 2

Paste from the 0 register with v"0p.

Solution 3

Copy your "foo" into another register, e.g. register a:

"ay

Then visually select the character you want to replace with "foo" and press

"aP

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Kosta Kontos
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Kosta Kontos

Updated on May 25, 2020

Comments

  • Kosta Kontos
    Kosta Kontos almost 4 years

    Let's say I've yanked 3 characters "foo" into my clipboard by using a visual select + yank, ie: 'vllly'

    Then I've moved my cursor to another character (let's call this character x) on line 5 which I'd like to replace with what I yanked previously, namely foo.

    I can use 'p' to paste foo after x, or 'P' to paste foo before x, but I want to replace x with foo.

    I can use 'vp' to replace x with foo, but this only works once, as it leaves me with x in my clipboard. In other words, if I move to my next occurrence of x and hit vp again, it doesn't replace it with foo.

    Sure, I could do a search / replace by using :s/x/foo/gc and then ignoring all occurrences of x that I don't wish to replace, but this is a little tedious to type, particularly when all I need to do is replace 2 or 3 occurrences of x that are very close to my cursor but not on the same line (ie: lines 2, 3 and 7).

    So currently I'm using :2,7s/x/foo/gc but I wonder if there is a way to move my cursor to x and hit [insert magic button here] to replace it with foo. And then I can move to my next occurrence of x and hit [magic button] again and boom, it's replaced x with foo again.

    As much as it pains me to use this analogy, imagine you're typing in notepad, and you select 3 characters, hit Ctrl+c to copy them into your clipboard, and then highlight x, and hit Ctrl+v to replace it with foo. Then you highlight another x, and hit Ctrl+v again, and so on.

    How do I do this in vim?