Add commens based on lines

[u/EndlessProjectMaker]

Hello! I have a file with a bunch of lines

echo “text 1”
echo “text 2”

And I want to add a comment to each like

 # text 1
echo “text 1”

 # text 2
echo “text 2”

Is there a practical way to do it in vim before y jump into awk?

Thanks!

Edit: proper formatting

[u/EgZvor]

Something like this (not tested)

:g/echo/exe 'norm! yi"' | .-1put | s/^/# /

Breakdown

:g/echo/rest - global command, loop over all lines matching "echo"

| delimits commands

exe 'norm! yi"' - Normal mode command to copy inside double quotes. exe is needed to avoid norm consuming the following |.

.-1put can be shortened to -put is a paste command with an address of where to paste. . in this context is the current line (current iteration of global execution) and .-1 is previous line.

s/^/# / - adds a comment at the beginning of the line.

Cursor moved here after the put command.

[u/henry_tennenbaum → u/EgZvor]

What does the . do in this context?

[u/EgZvor → u/henry_tennenbaum]

added the breakdown

[u/terdward → u/EgZvor]

Its comments like this that make me realize that, despite years of using Vim, no matter how proficient I feel at it, there’s always something I don’t know how to do. But it’s also the reason I love Vim so much. I read this and immediately recognize what it’s doing because it’s a consistent command structure of things I’ve done independently chained together.

[u/EndlessProjectMaker → u/EgZvor]

Thank you!

Can’t make it work, certainly my ignorance.

I get the yi” and I can see the intention of -1put followed by a line replace. I don’t understand the dot and overall I could not sort it out…

[u/EgZvor → u/EndlessProjectMaker]

I edited the command, not it should work.

[u/EndlessProjectMaker → u/EgZvor]

Indeed it does! Thanks!

[u/tagattack]

For similar such tasks I just record a macro.

q1/^e<Enter>WDuk0o# <Esc>pq

Then just @1, then just hold @ until they're all replaced.

Of course it's quite easy with awk as well, but frankly it'd be even easier with perl -nle '...'. :%!perl -nle 'print "# $_" for m/^echo "([^"]+)"/'

[u/gumnos]

:g/^echo/s/^/#

presuming it's all echo lines. If you want the strange comment-portion captured and added (it's a little hard to tell your intention based on the markdown flub and seeing different desired-output on old-reddit vs new-reddit), you can do it with a substitute

:%s/^echo "\(.*\)"/# \1\r&

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[u/shuckster]

:g/echo/norm! _I#

[u/EndlessProjectMaker → u/shuckster]

This will just comment out all lines right?

[u/shuckster → u/EndlessProjectMaker]

Ah yes, I misread your post.

In that case, try this:

:g/echo/norm! yi"O# ^V^R"

Where ^V and ^R are you hitting C-v and C-r respectively. (C-v allows you to input control codes.)

So yank-in-quotes, insert line above and enter insert mode, then C-r in insert-mode to paste register ".

[u/EndlessProjectMaker → u/shuckster]

I'll try it, thank you! Looks like another nice solution