Some VIM tricks

vim_tricks.md

Apply some vim commands on a file without entering vim

E.g. given 1st line "what to edit" and 2nd line "what vim commands to execute"

• -E Ex mode: vim will treat STDIN as if it's just list of commands
• here ^E means key press, so here 2 strategies to deal with it
  • replace ^E with new_line + ":norm "
  • replace ^E with hex code of ESC which is \x1b

head -1 > 1.tmp
vim -E 1.tmp <<EOF
:norm `sed 's/\^E/\n:norm /g'`
:wq
EOF
cat 1.tmp

or print to the STDOUT instead of file

head -1>1
vim -e 1 <<<"norm `sed 's~\^E~\x1b~g'`
%p|q"

• p = print