Command to surround a character with spaces in vim

Posted by William Becker on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by William Becker
Published on 2010-03-14T19:03:18Z Indexed on 2010/03/14 19:05 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 194

Filed under:

vim

|

vi

I am trying to use vim properly - to aid me I've mapped my arrow keys to "" so that I am forced to use {hjlk} to move around.

This is causing me a problem when I want to just surround a character with spaces, eg:

"2+3" is better formatted "2 + 3"

Previously I would have put my cursor over the + and typed:

i[space][arrow-right][space][Esc]

That's 5 presses.

To do this without the arrow I seem to need to put the cursor over the + and go:

i[space][Esc]lli[space][Esc]

That's 8 presses.

I can convert the "li" into an "a" which reduces it to 7 presses:

i[space][Esc]la[space][Esc]

Short of writing this into a macro is there a better way of doing it? Is there some magic vim command which will allow me to do it in less than even 5 presses - and some way to generalise it so that I can do it to entire words or symbols, eg if I want to convert 3==4 to 3 == 4?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about vim

Vim: Use different ~/.vim/plugin/ directories for different versions of vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Like many of you, my custom Vim configuration is stored in my ~/.vimrc, with the plugins, colors, etc. stored under ~/.vim/plugins, ~/.vim/colors, etc. I want to share a single Vim configuration among many servers. Some of these servers run Vim 7, some run the older Vim 6. Most Vim plugins are intended… >>> More
Why isn't the scripts in my autoload folder being executed in Vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to use Pathogen to manage my Vim extensions. My bundle folder looks like this: .../bundle/ +-- vim-pathogen ¦ +-- autoload ¦ +-- pathogen.vim +-- vim-smoothscroll +-- autoload +-- smooth_scroll.vim And my vimrc file includes this: let s:root = fnamemodify(resolve(expand(":p"))… >>> More
Cygwin vim doesn't load files in runtimepath

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I created a custom syntax file, and but none of the files in $VIMRUNTIME seem to load. I followed these pieces of the documentation: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/filetype.html#new-filetype http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/syntax.html#mysyntaxfile When I do :echo &runtimepath I… >>> More
Debugging matchit plugin in vim (under Cygwin)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The "matchit" plugin for vim is supposed to allow you to use the % key to jump between matching start/end tags when editing HTML, as well as /* and */ comment delimiters when editing other kinds of code. I've followed the exact instructions in ":help matchit", but % still doesn't work for me. It… >>> More
Vim: How to execute commands stored in a textfile opened in Vim

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I store, commands found at http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse, in a text file. If I open this text file in Vim and I want to execute the command where the cursor is actually located I do copy the line with Y, switching to command mode with : and !CTRL+r* Is there a more "lazy" possibility ;) >>> More

Related posts about vi

How to deal with job that stop and cannot continue unless made foreground?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Recent example: mountlo (using UML): vi@vi-notebook:~/b$ mountlo -m 16 -d /dev/uba1 /home/vi/mnt/usb -t vfat -o iocharset=utf8,allow_other& [1] 32561 vi@vi-notebook:~/b$ Checking that ptrace can change system call numbers...OK Checking syscall emulation patch for ptrace...OK Checking advanced syscall… >>> More
SQLBits VI session submission - Today is your last day

as seen on SQL Blogcasts - Search for 'SQL Blogcasts'
We will be deciding on the sessions tomorrow (Tuesday 8th March) so make sure you get your session in for SQLBits quick. Don't forget we are focussing on performance an scalability so make sure your session covers one or both of these. To submit your session Step 1 - Complete your Speaker Profile… >>> More
SQLBits VI session submission - Today is your last day

as seen on SQL Blogcasts - Search for 'SQL Blogcasts'
We will be deciding on the sessions tomorrow (Tuesday 8th March) so make sure you get your session in for SQLBits quick. Don't forget we are focussing on performance an scalability so make sure your session covers one or both of these. To submit your session Step 1 - Complete your Speaker Profile… >>> More
We've increased the number of sessions for SQLBits VI

as seen on SQL Blogcasts - Search for 'SQL Blogcasts'
Due to the overwhelming number of session submissions we have increased the number. So we now have 24 sessions plus 4 sessions from sponsors planned. To do this we are shortening each session to 50 minutes. I hope this goes down well, I guess we'll see when we get the feedback in. >>> More
We've increased the number of sessions for SQLBits VI

as seen on SQL Blogcasts - Search for 'SQL Blogcasts'
Due to the overwhelming number of session submissions we have increased the number. So we now have 24 sessions plus 4 sessions from sponsors planned. To do this we are shortening each session to 50 minutes. I hope this goes down well, I guess we'll see when we get the feedback in. >>> More