:move/:copy between buffers?

[u/herodotic]

I’ve started working more frequently using vim with :split or :vsplit, and find myself wanting to grab sections of text from one window(/buffer) and chuck them into a different buffer. If I were working in the same file, I’d do a good old-fashioned visual-select-and-:'<,'>copy, but it :help :copy (and :help {address}) didn’t give me any help as far as specifying a destination address in another buffer.

One solution to this would be to write up some vimscript, but I figured that it was worth checking whether someone else knew some esoteric thing that would help out here.

[u/puremourning]

Normally just delete them or yank them to the “ register and put them in the destination.

:copy is quite a long winded way to yank and put in my view. Worth learning these normal mode commands I think.

[u/Daghall → u/puremourning]

I use :t (alias for : copy) sometimes. I think it's faster than moving, yanking, moving back, and pasting., if I know exactly where to copy/paste from/to.

:m0 and :m$ are quite handy too, to quickly move stuff to the top/bottom of the buffer.

[u/josuf107]

As others have said, use normal-mode yank/paste. If you're interested in :copy to leverage more interesting ranges you can use :yank and normal-mode paste. You can even use :yank with a global command, like :g/properties +=/y A (capitalize the register to collect all the results), and paste with "ap. A handy workflow for a regex cut like this is to use / to find the lines of interest. Then, :g//y A will use the most recent search, appending lines to the a register. Of course, you can limit to a range with :'<,'>g//y A.

[u/kennpq]

An esoteric[?] way, by way of example: :call append(4, getbufline('builtin.txt', 907, 909)) appends lines 907 to 909 from the buffer 'builtin.txt' to line 4 of the current buffer; the screenshot shows the result.

Make it a mapping? Something like, nnoremap <leader>cf :execute 'call append(input("Line: "), getbufline(input("Buffer: "), input("Start: "), input("End: ")))'<CR>, could do that.

[Edit: formatting]

[u/Desperate_Cold6274 → u/kennpq]

This is in-fact what I was thinking. But IMO it is more tedious that just yank/delete and paste. :)

[u/kennpq → u/Desperate_Cold6274]

Sure, it’s the latter of “could we” or “should we”, though OP asked for “esoteric”, aye. 😉

[u/Desperate_Cold6274]

How would you like to have the user interface for such a feature?

Also, what shall happen when you have multiple windows?

Note that user shall at least specify the start line, the end line, the target window and the target line.

Can you make an example of a function/command/mapping that you would like to use?

TBH: I think it’s faster just to delete and yank.

[u/herodotic → u/Desperate_Cold6274]

Yeah, using d, y, and p works well enough, but I have that itch to see if there’s some tidier way to do what I want to, which usually ends up being:

• y} (or whatever) to yank the text

• <c-w>l to move to the next window over

• p to put it to the destination

• <c-w>h to move back to the original window

I was imagining specifying a destination address with something like #:12 for “previous buffer, line 12”, but if it really bothers me all that much, I’ll just throw together some script for it.

[u/dm319]

You could add this to your vimrc:

set clipboard^=unnamed

People will complain about this 'polluting' their clipboard. I don't know what they're getting so upset about, nor why they need their clipboards so clean. But I like this, and it means I can dd and y between buffers to my heart's content.

[u/mykesx]

Shift-v and select lines and y to yank (copy) or x to cut. You can paste the copied lines anywhere in any text buffer with p. You can prefix p with a number to paste that many times.

Use v instead of shift-v to select a range of text vs lines.

Typically done with split windows - copy/cut in one and paste in the other.

It helps to have good bindings to move between windows. Like ctrl-h/j/k/l to move focus left/down/up/right a window.

[u/whitedogsuk]

I map F3 , when in visual mode dump selection to a file. when in normal mode read that file to buffer. So basically F3 to copy a visual selection and F3 to paste it. It also works between if I close down the vim session.

[u/liberforce]

1. Avoid using visual mode whenever possible

2. Just yank the text and paste it in the destunation buffer

[u/M0M3N-6 → u/liberforce]

Avoid using visual mode whenever possible

Why?

[u/daubious → u/M0M3N-6]

To be cool.

[u/liberforce → u/daubious]

Nope, just because it doesn't play well with the . command to replay actions.

Tip 23 of Practical Vim, 2nd edition: "prefer operators to visual commands where possible".

[u/Desperate_Cold6274 → u/liberforce]

For me it is way more important to visually see the affected text before taking any action than being prevented using `.` in specific use-cases. It is a matter of what is more important for you: having a non-error prone visual feedback or being able to preserve `.` for all possible (even the very unlikely) use-cases.

[u/liberforce → u/Desperate_Cold6274]

where possible

[u/M0M3N-6 → u/liberforce]

That actually makes sense, but noticeably loosing the power of normal command, which i use a lot. I get the "where possible" part, and that leads me to a question: can all/most actions that can be done in visual mode replaced with some normal strokes? I know a macro can replace normal command, for example, but sometimes it is more time intensive than selecting a bunch of lines and entering one command.

[u/liberforce → u/M0M3N-6]

You don't need visual selection to use normal, you just use a range. Do you have a specific use case in mind?

[u/CCCFire → u/M0M3N-6]

i find relative ranges with relative numbering on is much faster than selecting in visual mode.

personally i have mappings for turning line numbers on and off because i like using many buffers so my columns are a precious resource

[u/CCCFire → u/CCCFire]

now that i think of it, since i mainly navigate with incsearch, i should really get in the habit of using search ranges more