vim-swap-words.adoc

"Swap words" in vim

Quite a common task to swap words on a single line might be really cumbersome.

Consider following text transormation:

def hello(world, is, on, fire) → def hello(is, world, on, fire)

This one is fairly simple:

1. put your cursor on world

2. dWWP — swap it with is

The next one would have more keypresses:

def hello(world, is, on, fire) → def hello(world, is, fire, on)

1. put your cursor on on

2. dw — delete it

3. w — go to fire

4. vep — select and paste over it (yanking prev selected text)

5. bbP — back to where on was, paste fire yanked previously

Or the next one:

def hello(world, is, on, fire) → def hello(fire, is, on, world)

1. put your cursor on world

2. diw — delete it

3. /fi<CR> — go to fire

4. vep — select and paste over it (yanking prev selected text)

5. ``P — back to where world was, paste fire yanked previously

There is a way to simplify it:

• You can introduce your own mappings to some of usecases as described in https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Swapping_characters,_words_and_lines

• or use plugins like https://github.com/machakann/vim-swap or https://github.com/tommcdo/vim-exchange

With mentioned plugins it looks way more convenient:

There is customization in vim-swap you can use to swap markdown table cells:

vim-swap settings for the markdown cells swaps:

let g:swap_no_default_key_mappings = 1
nmap g< <Plug>(swap-prev)
nmap g> <Plug>(swap-next)
nmap g. <Plug>(swap-interactive)

let g:swap#rules = deepcopy(g:swap#default_rules)
let g:swap#rules += [
            \   {
            \     'mode': 'n',
            \     'description': 'Reorder the | bar | delimited | things |.',
            \     'body': '|\%([^|]\+|\)\+',
            \     'delimiter': ['\s*|\s*'],
            \     'priority': -40
            \   }
            \ ]

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