Vim: Replacing a line with another one yanked before

At least once per day i have the following situation:

A: This line should also replace line X
...
X: This is line should be replaced

I believe that I don't perform that task efficiently.

What I do:

• Go to line A: AG
• Yank line A: yy
• Go to line X: XG
• Paste line A: P
• Move to old line: j
• Delete old line: dd

This has the additional disadvantage that line X is now in the default register, which is annoying if I find another line that should be replaced with A. Yanking to and pasting from an additional register ("ayy, "aP) makes this simple task even less efficient.

My Questions:

• Did I miss a built-in Vim command to replace a line yanked before?
• If not, how can I bind my own command that leaves (or restores) the yanked line in the default register?

Vp: select line, paste what was yanked

What I would do :

1. aG
2. Y
3. xG
4. Vp

You don't have to leave normal mode, but it does yank the line. You can however use V"0p which will always put the line yanked in step 2.

> This has the additional disadvantage > that line X is now in the default > register, which is annoying if I find > another line that should be replaced > with A.

To delete text without affecting the normal registers, you can use the Black hole register "_:

"_dd

Building on the answers that suggest using Vp or VP to paste over a line -- to avoid changing the contents of the yank register I find the most ergonomic command is simply:

VPY

1. yy
2. j (move to the line you want to replace),and then
3. Vp (uppercase v and then p, will replace with the yanked content)

I would use commandline (Ex) mode and do the following two commands

:XmA
:Ad

This simply moves line X to just under A, then deleting A moves that line up

For example

:7m3
:3d

1. Move to the start of the first line.

2. y, $ – copy the line without the linebreak at the end

3. Move to the start of the target line.

4. 1. V, p – replace just one target line

   2. c, c, Ctrlr, 0, Esc – replace the target line with the original yank

5. Move to the start of the next target line.

6. . – repeats the command issued at 4.2.

Notes:

• 4.1 is y, $ because if you do y, y or Y you will copy the linebreak, and Ctrlr, 0 actually adds the linebreak below your target line.

• 4.2 replaces V p, which doesn’t work with repeat because technically the last action is delete, so . would just delete a line.

• If anyone knows how to issue ‘replace current line with register’ from EX mode (command line), I would like to hear from you (and to know where you found the documentation). There may be a repeatable EX command which is faster than 4.2 and/or does not have the linebreak caveat.

You can also do:

Vy (in normal mode at the line you want to copy)
Vp (in normal mode at the line you want to replace)

• Doesn't create spaces or line ends.
• Cursor is placed at the start of the copied text.

The same keys can be used to yank/paste more than one line.

V (in normal mode at what you want to yank)
(use jk to move the selection)
y (to yank the selection)
V (in normal mode at where you want to paste)
(use jk to move the selection)
p (to replace the selection with the yanked lines)

You can use this with visual mode.

• Go to line A: AG
• Select the line with visual mode: VESC
• go to line X: XG
• Enter substitute mode for the line: S
• Paste the line you copied: shift+insert (or whatever other you mapping you have for pasting from the clipboard).

Here's what I would do

• Move beginning of line A, AG (where A is a line number obviously)
• Yank line to some register, e.g. a (without new line). Type "ay$
• Move to insert line, XG
• Substitute line, S
• Insert from register a, Ctrl-Ra

In light of the recent comment by cicld (thank you!), I see that I didn't grasp the original issue fully. Moving the line is not appropriate, but copying is (since the line is yanked.) So I would revise it to:

:1t20:20d_

1. Copy the 1st line (:t command is an alias for :copy) after line 20 (will place it on line 21)

2. Delete line 20, putting the deleted line into the 'blackhole' register (_) (i.e. not affecting the current yank buffer)

As mentioned in the recent comment, this will not affect the current cursor position.

You can use this commands in Normal Mode:

:AmX | Xd

the m command is for m[ove], which moves the line number A after the line number X, if you want to copy instead of move the line, use co[py]. the d command is for d[elete].

You can move(copy using co) a range of lines using

:start,end m X

1. :ay (where a is the line number. Example :20y). This yanks a line(pun intended).
2. Vp

I find it easier to use Ex command for this; ex. to move line 9 to 46:

 :46|9m.|-1d

This will move the cursor to line 46, move line 9 below the current, then delete the previous line (since moved line is the current one).

Or using mark(s), using mark 'a':

:46ma a|9m'a|'ad

I often have to Y one line and replace it in multiple places, each of which have a different value (which means that I can't do a regex).

Y to yank the desired original line

and then on every line that you'd like to replace, VpzeroY

i would simple use the "Black hole" register:

given:

nnoremap < C-d > "_dd

the solution would be:

< C-d >yy

If you only want to change part of the line you can do that this way:

Move to position of what part of text you want to copy

y,$ - Yank from cursor to EndOfLine

move to position where you want to replace

v,$,p - replace from cursor to EndOfLine with contents of register