Vim Replace Visual Star
=======================

Replacing text based on whats in the current search register is a quite handy tool that I use often. I believe I picked this tip up from Nick Janetakis,...

Date: January 10, 2021

Replacing text based on whats in the current search register is a quite handy
tool that I use often. I believe I picked this tip up from Nick Janetakis,
check out his YouTube channel for some amazing vim tips.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP_ckZ30gbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP_ckZ30gbs){.hoverlink}

If there is one thing that I Like most about vim it's the ability to hack on it
and make it work well for you.

## Replacing text in vim

Vim can often be a bit verbose, but that's ok because we can hack on it, and
make our own shortcuts and keybindings. For instance, finding and replacing
text requires using a command at the vim command-line `:`. Replacing foo with
bar looks like this `:%s/foo/bar/g`, the final g means all of the foos, not just
the first one on the line.

## making it better

I have a keybinding in my `init.vim` that will allow me to search for a pattern
with the usual `/` character, page through them as normal with `n` and `N`, but
when I press `` it will populate the replace command for me so that all I
need to do is type out the new text.

``` vim
nnoremap :%s////g
```

## Note on the `/`

In command mode `:` vim allows you to paste any text from any register into the
current command. The `/` will paste the text from the current search
register into the command.

`` in command mode can paste text from any register, you can see what
registers are in use with the `:reg` command. There are a lot of them and many
get populated automatically as you yank text or create macros.

Save Vim Macro [1]

> Also see how to use to save macros to key bindings easily

References:
[1]: /save-vim-macro/