Vim Plugins You Should Know About, Part I: surround.vim | Hacker News Reader

Vim Plugins You Should Know About, Part I: surround.vim

catonmat.net

77 pointspkrumins18 comments

  <!-- Ugh. Surround is OK, but sucks for wrapping in HTML tags. If I select the line: -->

  Hello!

  <!-- And use stp (surround selection with <p/>) I get: -->

  <p>
      Hello!
  </p>

  <!-- Instead of -->
  
  <p>Hello!</p>

  <!-- The workaround? ^v$ which is tedious. I recommend mapping this for those times when you want to wrap the current line quickly in XML tags. 

  function! TagWrapper()
      let a:tag = input("Tag: ")
      normal `>
      exe "normal a</" . a:tag . ">"
      normal `<
      exe "normal i<" . a:tag . ">"
  endfunction
  -->

This plugin does not define 'stp'. You must be using some other plugin that has this mapping.

The plugin I wrote about wraps HTML around perfectly. Try:

    ysiWt<p>

Or if you knew the tag you were going to wrap your "Hello!" in, then in insert mode you could have pressed:

    <CTRL+s>t<p>.

No, the plugin does define stp.

  :help Surround

The pattern you have there ("ysiWtp", < is unnecessary, as is >) is actually not thoroughly tested (as mentioned in the docs) and is used when not in a visual selection. In a visual selection, you use "s" followed by what you want to surround with, e.g. s"

You must have a different surround.vim script. Perhaps someone else wrote a script and called "surround.vim" as well.

The one I am talking about does not define stp and requires < > between tags.

What does your 'stp' do?

Edit: I see what you did there. You were in visual mode!

Of course. surround.vim couldn't get away with clobbering "s" in normal mode.

this works for me:

  viwstp>

turns

foo

into

  <p>foo</p>

Edit: (30 mins later) Now I understood fully what was happening. ;)

My favorite vim plugin is to not use any plugin: use the filter command "!", the unix way.

more on "!":

Run the given cmd/pipeline, and put it's output at the current cursor location:

    :r ! <cmd>

Filter the whole buffer through the given cmd/pipeline:

    :%! <cmd>

Filter a visual selection through the given cmd/pipeline: make selection (with mouse if you have :set mouse=a or gvim, or with any of the variations on 'v'), then hit '!'

you will pop into a command line like this:

    :'<,'>! <cmd>

'< is the beginning of the visual selection, and '> is the end.

Sure, but some things (eg, surround.vim) can't be emulated with that.

give me an example of something that i can't filter in a sed/grep/ed/awk/perl script.

I just made a plugin recently for on the fly Python checking with squiggly underlines, like a "real" IDE: pyflakes.vim http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2441

(Make sure you grab a Python 2.5/gvim--required ATM--build from the link on that page as well.)

I tried this plugin a few days ago, but it seemed to break the s (substitute) command, so I removed it. Does someone know how to make it work?

The problem is the following: Write a line of text, select part of it using v, then press s to remove the selection and enter insert mode to start replacing it. This doesn't work anymore when surround.vim is loaded. Too bad, it sure looks great…

Try 'R' instead of 's' that you were used to.

OR

Edit surround.vim and comment out the 's' mappings in visual mode. Like this:

    "    if !hasmapto("<Plug>Vsurround","v")
    "        if exists(":xmap")
    "            xmap  s    <Plug>Vsurround
    "        else
    "            vmap  s    <Plug>Vsurround
    "        endif
    "    endif
    "    if !hasmapto("<Plug>VSurround","v")
    "        if exists(":xmap")
    "            xmap  S    <Plug>VSurround
    "        else
    "            vmap  S    <Plug>VSurround
    "        endif
    "    endif

'R' replaces the whole line, so that won't do. I commented the script as you suggested and it works. Thank you!

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that pressing c instead of s in that situation will do the exact same thing.

oh my god, thank you. i love you.

I've been looking for a plugin that does precisely this. Thank you Peteris, you've got another subscriber ;)

Thank you! :)

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