VimTrick: Operate until pattern

Change, edit, or yank all the text until a pattern

In my daily Vim workflow I make regular use of c, d, and sometimes y. When combined with t, I can quickly delete or change the text on a line up until a character. For example:

• dtX - deletes everything up until the first X. The X can be any character at all.

• ctX - changes everything up until the first X. That is, deletes and leaves you in insert mode.

• ytX - yanks (copies) everything up until the first X.

I recently discovered a more powerful way to use these three options d, c, y: With a pattern rather than a single character. Simply use /some_pattern and then <Enter> after either d, c, or y:

• d/foo<Enter> - delete up until foo is found

• c/bar<Enter> - change everything up until bar

• y/pattern<Enter> - yank everything up until pattern

Watch the gif below for how this works. I’m definitely going to be using these on a regular basis now, especially for operations I want to repeat over and over on successive lines.

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Okay, back to today’s regularly scheduled VimTrick… In the gif below I make use of this pattern matching tip. Here I have a list of VimTricks and their publish date. Let’s say I want to remove everything up until the date. I can simply press d/\d<Enter> to delete everything on the line up until the matched pattern, any digit. Then I can press . on any of the next lines to repeat:

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