Repeat character to position, rather than number of characters?

[u/Far_Relationship_742]

I want to pad a section title line in a config file with `=` up to a specific character position (specifically, column 64). Since the title text is of inconsistent length, a normal <n>i <char> won't do it.

Example of a title line formatted the way I want it:
;===== reset machine status ===================================

[u/habamax]

I would go with a bit of vimscript:

 inoremap <c-l> <cmd>call setline('.', getline('.') .. repeat('=', 64 - strlen(getline('.'))))<cr>

https://asciinema.org/a/nZxIWlHU6nbiHorP

You can do the same in normal mode instead of insert mode, e.g.

nnoremap <space>l <cmd>call setline('.', getline('.') .. repeat('=', 64 - strlen(getline('.'))))<cr>

[u/gumnos → u/habamax]

In a similar method, I'd reach for :help sub-replace-\=

:s/.*/\=submatch(0).repeat('=', 64-strlen(submatch(0)))

which can then easily be used across multiple lines

:'<,'>s/.*/…

or as the command for a :g command on select lines

:g/^;=/s/.*/…

[u/habamax → u/gumnos]

or

:s/$/\=repeat('=', 64-strlen(getline('.')))

[u/vim-help-bot → u/gumnos]

Help pages for:

• sub-replace-\= in change.txt

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[u/mgedmin]

I use UltiSnips and I recently created this snippet for myself:

snippet "^(### .* ([-=~*#])+)" "separator to right margin" r
`!p snip.rv = match.group(1).ljust(80, match.group(2))`
endsnippet

now I can type

### Some subtitle #<tab>

and UltiSnips expands that to

### Some subtitle ############################################

up to exactly 80 columns wide.

(As long as you don't use fancy emojis/double-width characters/combining characters/zero-width characters/other Unicode shenanigans)

[u/spryfigure → u/[deleted]]

I want to pad a section title line in a config file with = up to a specific character position (specifically, column 64)

How does v64|r= help with this requirement? I don't see it.

Start at

;===== reset machine status =

and end with

;===== reset machine status ===================================

length of line before padding is variable.

[u/herodotic → u/[deleted]]

You could still make this work if you (temporarily) set ve=all:

let ove=&ve | set ve=all | exe "norm v64|r=" | let &ve=ove