Posts tagged: vim

^M for carriage return

2026-07-12T11:02:28Z

I don’t run into windows file endings very often, so when I see little ^M’s all over your file, I think “shit I know what these are and cant remember” They represent the windows carriage return.

Linux vs Unix Line Endings #

The difference here is that Unix uses \n and Linux uses \r\n, going all the way back to the typewriter it represents the two keys that a typist would have to press to get a new line and return the carriage back to the beginning.

Vim/Neovim #

When I open up a file and see this garbage all over, its not cozy, I want them gone, I dont want them all over my editor. I’m not sure what this would look like on windows, I haven’t been able to afford a windows machine in years, but its gross on my machine.

Remove them with a substitution command from normal mode.

:%s/\r//g

4c84c556-5d96-4df1-9324-217dfb2f951a.mp4

removing carriage returns with a substitution command

one eyed fighting kirby

2026-06-11T11:49:41Z

Just give em the ol one eyed fighting Kirby

This is a vim substitution technique to capture the rest of the line as a capture group.

:'<,'>s/longhorn\(.*\)/longhorn\1-rwx

This one captures pesky optional " and places it back at the end if it found one.

:'<,'>s/longhorn\("\?\)\(.*\)/longhorn\2-rwx\1

!!! see-also

<a href="/thought-200/" class="wikilink" data-title="The One Eyed Fighting Kirby" data-description="!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Ekt1PZBzQ&amp;t=351s" data-date="2024-01-26">The One Eyed Fighting Kirby</a>

tpope vim-speeddating

2026-01-04T00:00:00Z

Today I discovered vim-speeddating by tpope. I’m sure I’ve seen years ago but it did not click for my workflow until today. I often go through pictures from my phone for the past few days and make Posts tagged: shots posts, but I want to date them to about when the image was taken most of the time. This allows me to quickly bump days up and down using c-a and c-x even around the new year.

image

Sound on, listen to those new switches.

vim noa

2025-08-29T08:32:44Z

Vim :noa is a command that runs what you call without autocommands on. This is typically used when you have some BufWritePre commands for formatting, most auto formatters are implemented this way in vim. It can be super useful if you have something like a yaml/json file that you have crafted perfectly how you want it, maybe it has some source code for a small script or sql embeded and your formatter wants to turn it into one line. You could get a better formatter, but for these one off cases that aren’t a big bother to me I run :noa w.

:noa w

fixed long standing nvim startup error

2025-02-13T08:41:39Z

Here’s the diff, this is it.

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

The error #

On first install of my dotfiles I’m presenting with this flashbang of an error filling the screen with red background. Its kinda hard to read, I’m not deep into lua and reading their tracebacks. It pops up in this pager that if I scroll too far it quits and the error is gone before I know what it is or how it got there.

For the longest time it just felt like it randomly showed up without much warning.

I sent ai at the issue #

I tried some chatgpt and windsurf, both gave me overconfident answers that all did nothing. They just sent me in loops for way too long.

I fixed it #

What did it take??

Just sitting down and thinking about what the problem was and setting up a good test workflow. Yesterday I worked out testing nvim installs and I was immediately able to replicate the error over and over. Unlike before where it felt random, I now have a good problem statement that I can replicate.

clean install
start nvim
Lazy pops up
FLASHBANG!! Error that treesitter is not installed

What was confusing for so long was that treesitter was the first thing in lazy, and it appeared that lazy was running before the error.

The fix #

Once I really thought about not installed, it clicked. It must be the order of operations. I popped open my init.lua and there it was, lazy running after things that use treesitter. A little d+d+k+k+k+k+k+p and it was fixed. running just testnvim the next time there was no flashbang!

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

vim date

2025-02-12T12:51:00Z

When I want to put a date in a document like a blog post from vim I use !!date from insert mode. Note that entering !! from normal mode puts you in command mode with :.! filled out. This runs a shell command, i.e. date for this example.

It outputs the following

Fri Jan 31 08:46:11 PM CST 2025

You can also pass in a date such as tommorrow by pasdding in the -d date -d tomorrow.

It outputs the following

Sat Feb 1 08:53:20 PM CST 2025

codeium just taught me this one with autocomplete

:put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

This outputs the following

2025-01-31

What I like about the :put =strftime( method is that you can add a format, but that is a lot more for me to remember than !!date

A few weeks later #

I’m going through a bunch of blog posts and dont want my date formats to change to the Wed Feb format so I broke down and made these keybindings. I think I’m still going to be using .!date a lot, but these keybindings will be nice for editing blog post frontmatter.

set("n", "<leader>dd", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
set("n", "<leader>dt", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })

dd 2025-02-12
dt 2025-02-12 12:53:47
:.!date Wed Feb 12 12:53:47 PM CST 2025

nvim-manager

2025-01-12T21:14:19Z

I recently built a cli application as a nearly-one-shot-app called nvim-manager. It manages your nvim dotfiles install.

Why #

How is nvim manager any better #

nvim-manager allows you to install pinned versions of your dotfiles, your friends dotfiles, and distros in ~/.config. This allows you to have stable versions that will not break installed while you change things.

I’m sure most of us have experienced the pain of installing one plugin, only to update all of your plugins and break something.

Or, you have small changes on every machine you use, because they are all just a bit different and now you have big merge conflicts to deal with.

All of this aside you can install a distro to get you by, or a known working version of your own dotfiles.

So all these versions in ~/.config #

ya, thats the magic of NVIM_APPNAME, I can boot up any of these intalled working versions in an instant with NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-waylonwalker-v0.0.1 nvim. I can still cowboy up and break my main install, but as long as I am diligent to keep these installs untouched I will always have a version to fall back to in that moment of need.

So what do I need to do? #

start tagging your dotfiles as you hit stable versions
Install curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
Add some env variables to your shell startup (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for example)
Install that pinned version of your dotfiles nvim-manager install v0.0.1
Install a distro nvim-manager install --distro astronvim

Here are those environment variables I was talking about, set them to use your dotfiles repo, name it what you like, and set your NVIM_APPNAME if you want to default to a stable nvim and force yourself to unset NVIM_APPNAME to live on the edge.

Install nvim-manager #

apt install curl git unzip
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash

Install your own dotfiles #

Setup with the following environment variables.

# nvim-manager
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1

nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim

Note I like installer by jpillora, I self host it for my own security, but feel free to download from GH if it makes you feel safer.

Ubuntu Container Speedrun #

Here is a speedrun to getting nvim up and running in an ubuntu container.

set -euxo
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
apt update
apt install curl git unzip -y
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
mv bob ~/.local/bin
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
mv nvim-manager ~/.local/bin
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1
nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim-manager install --distro lazyvim
nvim-manager install --distro astronvim
nvim-manager install --distro nvchad
nvim-manager install --distro kickstart
nvim-manager install --distro lunarvim

# plugins like treesiter need gcc and make
apt install gcc make -y
export TZ="America/Chicago"
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
apt update
apt install tzdata -y
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
# Some of the mason installs need npm
apt install nodejs npm -y
# plugins like telescope require ripgrep
apt install fzf ripgrep -y

Give it a Star #

I’d appreciate a star if you find this app useful.

https://github.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager

Support regex substitution command · Issue #2232 · helix-edito...

2024-10-08T18:36:25Z

Support regex substitution command · Issue #2232 · helix-editor/helix

Support regex substitution, comparable to vim :s or VSCode search & replace. I propose supporting regex replacements for selection s, files/, and the workspace scopes <space> + /. This could be acc...

GitHub · github.com

Here is a really good vim substitute with regex capture groups, saving this one for a rainy day.

* Reading 1: This is a title to a link
* Reading 2: This is another title

:%s/\v(: )(.+)$/\1\[\2\]\(

* Reading 1: [This is a title to a link](
* Reading 2: [This is another title](

Vim-gq

2024-08-05T12:22:00Z

Vim has a handy feature to format text with gq. You can use it in visual mode, give it a motion, or if you give it gqq it will format the current line. I use this quite often while writing in markdown, I do not use softwraps in vim, so gqq quickly formats my current line into a paragraph. Once I have done this for a single line one time I typically switch to the motion for around paragraph gqap to format the whole paragraph and not just the current line.

before formatting #

after formattting #

Find And Replace one eyed kirby

2024-06-30T22:30:38Z

another great use and demo of the one eyed fighting kirby

Refactoring one line links into wikilinks

2024-05-31T20:33:10Z

Previously I had setup a feature of my website to expand one line links into a card. This was not a standard, even to the point that some formatters wrap the links with , thus breaking my custom plugin. Moving to the wikilink standard will allow my markdown posts to work accross more site builders without custom integrations.

Expand One Line Links

What is a wikilink #

Wikilinks are standard to a lot of wikis written in markdown.

markdown-it-wikilinks

The wikilink syntax is a slug wrapped in double square brackets.

[[ slug ]]

Marksman lsp will even autocomplete these for you, its pretty sweet.

Note

 I recently implemented hover for wikilinks and and am pretty stoked about the

result. Check this one out sick wikilink hover.

Vim Quickfix #

You could use vimgrep to fill your quickfix list will all of the one line links but I am less familiar with vimgrep and kept missing posts for some reason, I think it was something in my file glob missing some directories.

I chose to use cexpr to fill my quickfix list using a command that outputs a vimgrep format filename:line:col:msg

:cexpr system('rg ^<https -t md --vimgrep .')

This filled my quickfix list with all of the one line links.

Vim cdo #

Now all I needed to do was to run a substitution command on every line in the quickfix list. This one features the one eyed fighting kirby that I learned from the primeagen [[ thoughts-200 ]].

:cdo s/\(^https:\/\/waylonwalker.com\/\)\(.*\)/[[ \2 ]]

This converts all of the full links into a slug wrapped in double square brackets.

More #

There was a bit more to the full refactor, for instance some had a til/ preix, some were for youtube, and some were not pointed to my site.

My harpoon config

2024-04-16T06:34:38Z

![[None]]

Install it

	{
		"ThePrimeagen/harpoon",
		branch = "harpoon2",
		dependencies = { "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim" },
		config = function()
			require("waylonwalker.plugins.harpoon").setup()
		end,
	},

harpoon config

local harpoon = require("harpoon")
M = {}

M.setup = function()

-- REQUIRED
harpoon:setup()
-- REQUIRED

vim.keymap.set("n", "<F10>", function() harpoon:list():append() end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F9>", function() harpoon.ui:toggle_quick_menu(harpoon:list()) end)

vim.keymap.set("n", "<F1>", function() harpoon:list():select(1) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F2>", function() harpoon:list():select(2) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F3>", function() harpoon:list():select(3) end)
-- these are cnext/cprev
-- vim.keymap.set("n", "<F4>", function() harpoon:list():select(4) end)
-- vim.keymap.set("n", "<F5>", function() harpoon:list():select(5) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F6>", function() harpoon:list():select(6) end)

-- Toggle previous & next buffers stored within Harpoon list
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F7>", function() harpoon:list():prev() end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F8>", function() harpoon:list():next() end)

-- basic telescope configuration
local conf = require("telescope.config").values
local function toggle_telescope(harpoon_files)
    local file_paths = {}
    for _, item in ipairs(harpoon_files.items) do
        table.insert(file_paths, item.value)
    end

    require("telescope.pickers").new({}, {
        prompt_title = "Harpoon",
        finder = require("telescope.finders").new_table({
            results = file_paths,
        }),
        previewer = conf.file_previewer({}),
        sorter = conf.generic_sorter({}),
    }):find()
end

vim.keymap.set("n", "<C-e>", function() toggle_telescope(harpoon:list()) end,
    { desc = "Open harpoon window" })

end

return M

From Vim To Zed - YouTube

2024-04-13T18:42:56Z

I found this statement quite intriguing.

multi-cursors are just macros.

This is quite a philisophical video and mostly prime talking about the things that make vim vim, and what prime needs in and editor vs what he can live without.

The One Eyed Fighting Kirby

2024-01-26T23:21:06Z

I’ve heard prime say just give it the one eyed fighting kirby so many times, and execute it few times, and there is no way to find it online, so this will be the link that I will come to, when I need to remember what @theprimeagen means when he says Give it the one eyed fighting kirby.

:s/\(.*\);/console.log(\1)

So what is this? #

This is a vim substitute comand to replace text in the buffer. the one eyed fighting kirby is a regex capture group to capture everything between matches, and assign it a value to place back in after the match.

substitute in a nutshell, :s/<what you want to replace>/<what you want to replace with>

More examples #

Here is a contrived example of text.

here there
from here go there
here = some_fuction(there)

Now for some reason I want to switch all of the words here and there. I can do that with three capture groups, \1 is here, \2 is everything between, \3 is there.

:%s/\(here\)\(.*\)\(there\)/\3\2\1

Just give it the one eyed fighting kirby

~Prime

still struggling #

I thought this explaination from phind was good and more verbose than mine.

describe this vim substitute regex

:%s/(here)(.)(there)/\3\2\1 ANSWER | PHIND V9 MODEL The given Vim substitute regex :%s/(here)(.)(there)/\3\2\1 performs the following operation:

%s initiates the substitute command. The percent sign % indicates that the operation should be performed across the entire file, not just the current line 2. (here) is a capturing group that matches the word “here”. The parentheses ( and ) are used to define a group, and the content inside them is what the group will match 3. (.) is another capturing group that matches any sequence of characters. The . inside the group is a wildcard that matches any character (except a newline), and the * quantifier means “zero or more of the preceding element”. So, this group will match any sequence of characters 2. (there) is yet another capturing group that matches the word “there”. This group will match the word “there” that appears after the word “here” and any sequence of characters 3. /\3\2\1 is the replacement part of the command. Here, \3, \2, and \1 are backreferences to the matched groups. They correspond to the words “there”, any sequence of characters, and “here”, in that order. So, this command replaces the matched pattern with the word “there”, followed by any sequence of characters, and ending with the word “here” 4. So, in summary, this command searches for the pattern “here”, followed by any sequence of characters, and ending with “there”, and replaces it with the same pattern but reversed (“there”, followed by the original sequence of characters, and ending with “here”).

I used this techniq on Refactoring one line links into wikilinks.

nvim stupid gf bind

2023-12-28T10:04:57Z

So after months of fighting with gf not going to template files, I finally decided to put in some effort to make it work.

This was the dumbest keybind in my config, that I copied from someone else without understanding it.

What I am trying to do #

I have jinja templates in a directory called templates. I want to bind gf to open a template file, but it is trying to open a new file ./base.html

{% extends "base.html" %}
{% if request.state.user %}
    {% block title %}Fokais - {{ request.state.user.full_name }} {% endblock %}
{% else %}
    {% block title %}Fokais {% endblock %}
{% endif %}
{% block content %}
    {% if request.state.user %}
        <h1 id="title"
            class="inline-block mx-auto text-5xl font-black leading-loose
            text-transparent bg-clip-text bg-gradient-to-r from-red-600
            via-pink-500 to-yellow-400 ring-red-500 text-shadow-xl
            text-shadow-zinc-950 ring-5">
            {{ request.state.user.full_name }}
        </h1>
    {% endif %}
    {% include "me_partial.html" %}
{% endblock %}

What did not work #

I tried all sorts of changes to my path, but it still didn’t work.

vim.api.nvim_command("set path+=templates/**")

What I found #

after digging into my keymap I found that I had remaped gf to edit years ago. This works great if the file is in your current directory, and if it’s not it makes the file. This bind completely breaks vim’s ability to :find files and was a terrible keybind that I added probably from someone else years ago and have literally never used this feature. If gf opens an empty file I always close it and assume that vim failed to :find the file.

-- Allow gf to open non-existent files
set("", "gf", ":edit <cfile><CR>")

Yes, after that fix I still needed to adjust my path #

I ended up with the following in my options.lua.

-- look for jinja templates in the templates directory
vim.opt.path:append("templates/**")

Diagnostic - Neovim docs

2023-10-25T19:01:06Z

https://neovim.io/doc/user/diagnostic/

neovim.io

Clear out lsp diagnostics in nvim.

lua vim.diagnostic.reset()

Bob Belderbos on X: "Forget Python for a sec, here's how Vim h...

2023-10-05T06:34:19Z

Bob Belderbos (@bbelderbos) on X

Forget Python for a sec, here's how Vim helped me out today … 💪 📈

Ever felt like you needed a quick string replacement without diving into a script? Here's a Vim trick I just used …

I w…

X (formerly Twitter) · twitter.com

I need to learn regex capture groups better. This is so dang powerful. I really like the \v that bob uses here, it really does cut down on the terseness of all the special characters.

I wanted to replace all occurrences of:

name,name@example.com,0,171,,2023-09-21

With:

name,name@example.com

Easy to do with Python, but what about a bit of > regex in Vim?

:%s/\v([^,]+,[^,]+),.*/\1/

Formatting on save · jose-elias-alvarez/null-ls.nvim Wiki

2023-08-06T06:19:23Z

External Link

github.com

neovim stopped formatting on save for me awhile ago and I have just been dealing with it. looks like there may have been an api change, idk.

I had to make this update.4

- vim.lsp.buf.format()
+ vim.lsp.buf.format({async=false})

LazyVim Installation

2023-07-28T19:59:37Z

🛠️ Installation | LazyVim

You can find a starter template for LazyVim here

lazyvim.org

Lately in 2023 I have been leaning on lazyvim for my new setups where I am not necessarily ready to drop my full config. It’s been pretty solid, and comes with a very nice setup out of the box, the docs are pretty fantastic as well.

extending vim with shell commands

2022-11-12T18:38:11Z

Vimconf 2022

The pitch #

Extending vim does not need to be complicated and can be done using cli tools that you might already be comfortable with. Examples, setting up codeformatters with autocmds, using lf/ranger as a tui file manager, generating new files using a template framework like cookiecutter/copier/yeoman, using ag to populate your quickfix.

run a command #

vimconf!!<esc>!!figlet

formatters #

local settings = require'waylonwalker.settings'

M.waylonwalker_augroup = augroup('waylonwalker', { clear = true })
M.format_python = function()
    if settings.auto_format.python then
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!tidy-imports --black --quiet --replace-star-imports --replace --add-missing --remove-unused " . bufname("%")')
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!isort " . bufname("%")')
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!black " . bufname("%")')
    end
end

autocmd({ "BufWritePost" }, {
    group=M.waylonwalker_augroup,
    pattern = { "*.py" },
    callback = M.format_python,
})

vim.keymap.set('n', 'geit', '<cmd>terminal markata list --map path --filter \'"til" in path\' --fast --no-pager<cr>')

vim.keymap.set('n', 'geit', '<cmd>Telescope find_files find_command=markata,list,--map,path,--filter,date==today,--fast<cr>')

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>ee', '<cmd>vertical terminal lf<cr>')

FloatTerm #

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader><leader>w', '<cmd>FloatermNew waylonwalker<cr>')
vim.g['floaterm_opener'] = 'vsplit'
vim.keymap.set('n', 'gee', '<cmd>FloatermNew lf<cr>')

vimgrep over hidden files #

I know all the files that I care to search for are called build.yml, and they are in a hidden directory.

:args `fd -H build.yml`
:vimgrep /upload docs/ ##

Once opened as a buffer by using args, and a handy fd command I can vimgrep over all the open buffers using ##

Open buffers are represented by ##

Now I can just dap and :cnext my way through the list of changes that I have, and know that I hit every one of them when I am at the end of my list. And can double check this in about 10s by scrolling back through the quickfix list.