Home / ubuntu / Questions / 64833
Accepted
kctang
Asked: 2011-10-09 07:43:38 +0800 CST

vi shortcut to delete "until the next X character"

  • 772

I understand that vi has shortcut keys to delete characters, words and lines with various options.

However, I could not find this:

  • delete from the cursor to the next specified character

For example, I might type du" expecting the editor to "delete until the next " character is found"

The closest I know is d9w where 9 is the number of words to delete.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

vim

7 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use dtc, where c is any character, e.g. for you, you want dt"

    This will delete upto but not including c.

    If you had:

    delete until exclamation point!

    And the cursor was at the first space and you typed dt!, you would get:

    delete!

    Also dfc.

    This will delete upto and including c.

    Using df! on the same example above would give you:

    delete

    Just about any "motion" can be used for the d, c, y and similar commands.

    • 432

    • To delete forward up to character 'X' type dtX

    • To delete forward through character 'X' type dfX

    • To delete backward up to character 'X' type dTX

    • To delete backward through character 'X' type dFX

    • 86

  3. The input dt# (not a :command, use it like a movement like G)

    will delete from the cursor until but not including the #. You can substitute any char for #.

    • 30

  4. It looks like @Arcege already answered the question, but I did d/l to delete until the character l; other characters would work as well.

    • 20

  5. w moves to the following word. l moves to the following charactor.

    So it's d9l to delete the next 9 characters.

    • 7

  6. I suggest use delete with pattern,

    d/<pattern>

    d is action delete

    / is vim searching sign

    for example, the following is a MySQL connection string. I want to change to the password redhat to new one

    root:redhat@tcp(localhost:3306)/?parseTime=True

    In command mode , I click w(skip to next word), the cursor move to ":", click w again will move the cursor to first char r of password redhat. now click d/@ will delete the any characters until @ that in this case will remove the redhat. d/@tcp is better if the string has more than one @, the pattern more paticular is more precise.

    • 3

  7. Nobody mentioned about that so I thought I would share this as well.
    If you want to delete until a character you can use dt and type the desired character. If you want to delete until a character but the character is also in the middle for instance (hell(o) world) and you want to delete from hell(o) until the last ) and your cursor is on the h you can type a number, in this case 2dt) this will jump the first ).

    You can also use de (delete end), here by "end" you have to think "end of the word (not line)" so if you want to delete for instance .world in (hello.world) and your cursor is on the dot, you can type de.

    Hope it helps

    • 2