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Vim - insert anything between each letter

In vim, I have a line of text like this:

abcdef

Now I want to add an underline or something between each letter, so this will be the result:

a_b_c_d_e_f

The only way I know to do this is to write the macro like this:

qqa_<esc>lq4@q

Is there a better, easier way to do this?

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4 answers


Here's a quick and slightly more interactive way to do it, everything is normal.

With the cursor at the beginning of the line, press:



  • i_<Esc>x

    to insert and remove the separator character. (We do this for a side effect.)
  • gp

    to return the separator.
  • .

    , hold it until the job is done.

Unfortunately, we cannot use a counter with .

here, because it simply inserts the "count" delimiters in place.

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If you _

only want to add between letters, you can do it like this:

:%s/\a\zs\ze\a/_/g


Replace with \a

another pattern if you want more than ASCII letters.

To understand how this should work: :help \a

, :help \zs

, :help \ze

.

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:%s/\(\p\)\p\@=/\1_/g

  • :

    runs the command.
  • %

    searches the entire document.
  • \(\p\)

    will match and freeze the character for printing. You could replace \p

    with \w

    if you just wanted to match characters, eg.
  • \p\@=

    performs a audit trail to ensure that a match (first) is \p

    followed by another \p

    . This second, i.e. \p\@=

    is not part of the match. It is important.
  • In the replacement part, \1

    fills in the matching (first) value \p

    , and _

    a literal.
  • The last flag g

    is the standard for all flags.
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Use positive and replace:

:%s/\(.\(.\)\@=\)/\1_/g

This will match any character followed by any character except line break

.

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