How do I run a command on every entry in the location list, like a window-local quickfix?

Explanation

Vim maintains two parallel systems for collections of file positions: the quickfix list (global, one per Vim session) and the location list (local to each window). The location list lets you keep independent sets of positions in different splits — so you can have a grep result in one window and a compiler error list in another simultaneously.

:ldo {cmd} applies an Ex command to every entry in the current window's location list, just as :cdo does for the quickfix list.

How it works

• :lvimgrep /pattern/ **/*.go — populate the location list (window-local)
• :lopen — open the location list window
• :ldo {cmd} — run {cmd} on each entry in the location list
• :lfdo {cmd} — run {cmd} once per file in the location list (like :cfdo)

Because each window has its own location list, you can run :lvimgrep independently in two splits and use :ldo in each without clobbering the other's results.

Example

Search for all TODOs and replace them with FIXME across the project:

:lvimgrep /TODO/ **/*.py
:ldo s/TODO/FIXME/ | update

With the split next to it still holding its own location list from an earlier :lvimgrep — both lists coexist independently.

Tips

• Location-list variants of quickfix commands: :lgrep / :lvimgrep / :lmake / :lopen / :lclose / :lnext / :lprev
• Use :lwindow instead of :lopen — it only opens the list if it has entries, and closes it when empty
• :cdo vs :ldo: prefer :cdo when one shared result list is enough; use :ldo when you need independent lists per window