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Vim practical example

delbetu

M Bellucci

Posted on July 6, 2018

Vim practical example

The problem

In my job, I had to open in a browser a set of similar URLs.
A sample URL
https://db-provider.com/dashboard.html#database/the-db-name/<element-name>.<lang>.<locale>

In this concrete case, I had to access 6 elements and each one in 6 different languages.
36 different URLs.

Solution

Approach 1
Open the browser and type every URL
This would be reaaaaaaally boring.

Approach 2
Use Vim

Open vim
Write the sample URL
Then replicate this URL 5 times.

yy5p
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now we have one line per element.
alt 1

Write every element name

:1s/<element-name>/element1/ # scoped to line 1 replace <element-name> with element1
:<up_arrow> # show previous executed command
:2s/<element-name>/element2/
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Repeat this 4 more times
alt 2

Replicate this block 5 times once per lang-locale

ggy6jG # go to top, yank 6 lines down, go to bottom
qq # start recording in register q
o<esc> # insert blank line
p # paste yanked block
G # go to bottom
q # stop recording
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

At this point, we have recorded insert a new line and paste yanked block.
Let's repeat this 5 times.

5@q # execute register q 5 times
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

alt 3

gg # Go to the top
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

For each block replace first lang-locale with en.us
Create a macro for replacing one line and go to next line to replace.

qq # start recording
:.s/<lang>.<locale>/en.us/ # scoped to current line replace <lang>.<locale> with en.us
7jq # go 7 lines down and stop recording
5@q # repeat this macro 5 more times once per each block.
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

At this point you should have something like this:
alt 4

Go to the second line and repeat the process with de.de

2gg # go to second line
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Repeate the process with pt.BR, es.MX, fr.fr and ja.jp

At this point, you should have something like
alt 5

Remove every empty line.

:g/^$/d # apply d command to lines matching /^$/
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

We have built every possible URL.
Now we need to open them into default browser.

:%! xargs open # pass all lines as the argument to open command
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magic3

The default browser will open all those URLs in different tabs.
(open command is present on mac-os. For Linux you should have a similar)

I hope you've enjoyed.
All comments are welcome!

💖 💪 🙅 🚩
delbetu
M Bellucci

Posted on July 6, 2018

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