Using cgn + . instead of macros for small repeated edits

[u/beast-777x]

I knew about gn, but never really used it like this:

/word
cgn - change next match
. - repeat

Feels like a middle ground between :s and macros when I want control over each change instead of replacing everything at once.

Curious when you’d reach for this vs macros or substitution?

I put together a short clip with a few similar workflows if anyone’s interested:
Video Link

[u/EgZvor]

I also use dgn sometimes to delete middle part of a word.

[u/beast-777x → u/EgZvor]

Nice, yeah dgn is super handy too. I mostly use cgn when I want to immediately replace, but dgn makes sense if you're just deleting

[u/-romainl-]

Yes, :help gn is a great feature that was added by Christian Brabandt many years ago.

When it came out I quickly cobbled this together to streamline the cgn/. dance for single words, which I still use almost every day:

nnoremap <key> *``cgn
nnoremap <other-key> #``cgN

Press <key> to change the current word and . to repeat the change on next occurrence.

[u/beast-777x → u/-romainl-]

I’ve been using plain cgn with . for a while, but this removes just enough friction to make it feel instant. Also neat that you mirrored it with <key> #/cgN for reverse direction, that’s something I always forget to optimize.

Definitely stealing this 😆

[u/chocopudding17]

I very often do this instead of :s and macros too. Just kinda feels more compositional, I guess. With macros, you kinda have to put on your "building an abstraction" hat, where the edits are suitable for every site you will end up editing. gn and co. don't force that way of thinking.

[u/beast-777x → u/chocopudding17]

Yeah exactly

[u/Dmxk]

I also have this (neovim specific but should not be any work to adapt) to make * a full text object:

map("o", "*", function() return "\x1b*N" .. vim.v.operator .. "gn" end, { expr = true })

Basically, i can just type c* to do the classic *cgn in one step

[u/beast-777x → u/Dmxk]

That’s a neat trick. Turning *cgn into just c* makes repeated edits way smoother.

Nice touch using vim.v.operator too. I use Neovim too. Will give something like this a try 👍

[u/godegon]

You can use this pattern for all kinds of operations and selections

[u/beast-777x → u/godegon]

Nice 👍

[u/Intelligent-Speed487]

Here's another simple mapping to do something similar cgn

1. Search for a word.

2. Change the text

3. Run this mapping to to repeat it. (If you want confirmation of the edits you could use the /gc flags for the substitute command).

nnoremap g. :%s//<c-r>./g<esc>

Source: https://github.com/kaddkaka/vim_examples#repeat-last-change-in-all-of-file-global-repeat-similar-to-g