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+*usr_26.txt* For Vim version 9.0. Last change: 2006 Apr 24
+
+ VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar
+
+ Repeating
+
+
+An editing task is hardly ever unstructured. A change often needs to be made
+several times. In this chapter a number of useful ways to repeat a change
+will be explained.
+
+|26.1| Repeating with Visual mode
+|26.2| Add and subtract
+|26.3| Making a change in many files
+|26.4| Using Vim from a shell script
+
+ Next chapter: |usr_27.txt| Search commands and patterns
+ Previous chapter: |usr_25.txt| Editing formatted text
+Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|
+
+==============================================================================
+*26.1* Repeating with Visual mode
+
+Visual mode is very handy for making a change in any sequence of lines. You
+can see the highlighted text, thus you can check if the correct lines are
+changed. But making the selection takes some typing. The "gv" command
+selects the same area again. This allows you to do another operation on the
+same text.
+ Suppose you have some lines where you want to change "2001" to "2002" and
+"2000" to "2001":
+
+ The financial results for 2001 are better ~
+ than for 2000. The income increased by 50%, ~
+ even though 2001 had more rain than 2000. ~
+ 2000 2001 ~
+ income 45,403 66,234 ~
+
+First change "2001" to "2002". Select the lines in Visual mode, and use: >
+
+ :s/2001/2002/g
+
+Now use "gv" to reselect the same text. It doesn't matter where the cursor
+is. Then use ":s/2000/2001/g" to make the second change.
+ Obviously, you can repeat these changes several times.
+
+==============================================================================
+*26.2* Add and subtract
+
+When repeating the change of one number into another, you often have a fixed
+offset. In the example above, one was added to each year. Instead of typing
+a substitute command for each year that appears, the CTRL-A command can be
+used.
+ Using the same text as above, search for a year: >
+
+ /19[0-9][0-9]\|20[0-9][0-9]
+
+Now press CTRL-A. The year will be increased by one:
+
+ The financial results for 2002 are better ~
+ than for 2000. The income increased by 50%, ~
+ even though 2001 had more rain than 2000. ~
+ 2000 2001 ~
+ income 45,403 66,234 ~
+
+Use "n" to find the next year, and press "." to repeat the CTRL-A ("." is a
+bit quicker to type). Repeat "n" and "." for all years that appear.
+ Hint: set the 'hlsearch' option to see the matches you are going to change,
+then you can look ahead and do it faster.
+
+Adding more than one can be done by prepending the number to CTRL-A. Suppose
+you have this list:
+
+ 1. item four ~
+ 2. item five ~
+ 3. item six ~
+
+Move the cursor to "1." and type: >
+
+ 3 CTRL-A
+
+The "1." will change to "4.". Again, you can use "." to repeat this on the
+other numbers.
+
+Another example:
+
+ 006 foo bar ~
+ 007 foo bar ~
+
+Using CTRL-A on these numbers results in:
+
+ 007 foo bar ~
+ 010 foo bar ~
+
+7 plus one is 10? What happened here is that Vim recognized "007" as an octal
+number, because there is a leading zero. This notation is often used in C
+programs. If you do not want a number with leading zeros to be handled as
+octal, use this: >
+
+ :set nrformats-=octal
+
+The CTRL-X command does subtraction in a similar way.
+
+==============================================================================
+*26.3* Making a change in many files
+
+Suppose you have a variable called "x_cnt" and you want to change it to
+"x_counter". This variable is used in several of your C files. You need to
+change it in all files. This is how you do it.
+ Put all the relevant files in the argument list: >
+
+ :args *.c
+<
+This finds all C files and edits the first one. Now you can perform a
+substitution command on all these files: >
+
+ :argdo %s/\<x_cnt\>/x_counter/ge | update
+
+The ":argdo" command takes an argument that is another command. That command
+will be executed on all files in the argument list.
+ The "%s" substitute command that follows works on all lines. It finds the
+word "x_cnt" with "\<x_cnt\>". The "\<" and "\>" are used to match the whole
+word only, and not "px_cnt" or "x_cnt2".
+ The flags for the substitute command include "g" to replace all occurrences
+of "x_cnt" in the same line. The "e" flag is used to avoid an error message
+when "x_cnt" does not appear in the file. Otherwise ":argdo" would abort on
+the first file where "x_cnt" was not found.
+ The "|" separates two commands. The following "update" command writes the
+file only if it was changed. If no "x_cnt" was changed to "x_counter" nothing
+happens.
+
+There is also the ":windo" command, which executes its argument in all
+windows. And ":bufdo" executes its argument on all buffers. Be careful with
+this, because you might have more files in the buffer list than you think.
+Check this with the ":buffers" command (or ":ls").
+
+==============================================================================
+*26.4* Using Vim from a shell script
+
+Suppose you have a lot of files in which you need to change the string
+"-person-" to "Jones" and then print it. How do you do that? One way is to
+do a lot of typing. The other is to write a shell script to do the work.
+ The Vim editor does a superb job as a screen-oriented editor when using
+Normal mode commands. For batch processing, however, Normal mode commands do
+not result in clear, commented command files; so here you will use Ex mode
+instead. This mode gives you a nice command-line interface that makes it easy
+to put into a batch file. ("Ex command" is just another name for a
+command-line (:) command.)
+ The Ex mode commands you need are as follows: >
+
+ %s/-person-/Jones/g
+ write tempfile
+ quit
+
+You put these commands in the file "change.vim". Now to run the editor in
+batch mode, use this shell script: >
+
+ for file in *.txt; do
+ vim -e -s $file < change.vim
+ lpr -r tempfile
+ done
+
+The for-done loop is a shell construct to repeat the two lines in between,
+while the $file variable is set to a different file name each time.
+ The second line runs the Vim editor in Ex mode (-e argument) on the file
+$file and reads commands from the file "change.vim". The -s argument tells
+Vim to operate in silent mode. In other words, do not keep outputting the
+:prompt, or any other prompt for that matter.
+ The "lpr -r tempfile" command prints the resulting "tempfile" and deletes
+it (that's what the -r argument does).
+
+
+READING FROM STDIN
+
+Vim can read text on standard input. Since the normal way is to read commands
+there, you must tell Vim to read text instead. This is done by passing the
+"-" argument in place of a file. Example: >
+
+ ls | vim -
+
+This allows you to edit the output of the "ls" command, without first saving
+the text in a file.
+ If you use the standard input to read text from, you can use the "-S"
+argument to read a script: >
+
+ producer | vim -S change.vim -
+
+
+NORMAL MODE SCRIPTS
+
+If you really want to use Normal mode commands in a script, you can use it
+like this: >
+
+ vim -s script file.txt ...
+<
+ Note:
+ "-s" has a different meaning when it is used without "-e". Here it
+ means to source the "script" as Normal mode commands. When used with
+ "-e" it means to be silent, and doesn't use the next argument as a
+ file name.
+
+The commands in "script" are executed like you typed them. Don't forget that
+a line break is interpreted as pressing <Enter>. In Normal mode that moves
+the cursor to the next line.
+ To create the script you can edit the script file and type the commands.
+You need to imagine what the result would be, which can be a bit difficult.
+Another way is to record the commands while you perform them manually. This
+is how you do that: >
+
+ vim -w script file.txt ...
+
+All typed keys will be written to "script". If you make a small mistake you
+can just continue and remember to edit the script later.
+ The "-w" argument appends to an existing script. That is good when you
+want to record the script bit by bit. If you want to start from scratch and
+start all over, use the "-W" argument. It overwrites any existing file.
+
+==============================================================================
+
+Next chapter: |usr_27.txt| Search commands and patterns
+
+Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: