How do I repeat the last f, t, F, or T character search on a line?

Explanation

After using f, t, F, or T to jump to a character on the current line, pressing ; repeats the same search in the same direction, and , repeats it in the opposite direction. This turns single-character searches into a rapid-fire navigation system — jump to the first match, then tap ; to hop to each subsequent one.

How it works

• f{char} moves the cursor forward to the next occurrence of {char} on the current line
• t{char} moves forward to just before the next {char}
• F{char} and T{char} do the same but search backward
• ; repeats the last f/t/F/T motion in the original direction
• , repeats it in the reverse direction
• Both ; and , stay on the current line — they never wrap to other lines

Example

Given the text with the cursor at the beginning:

foo, bar, baz, qux, quux

Press f, to jump to the first comma. Now:

• Press ; to jump to the second comma
• Press ; again to jump to the third comma
• Press , to jump back to the second comma

This works identically with t: press t, to land just before the first comma, then ; to land just before the second, and so on.

Tips

• Pair ; with the dot command for blazing-fast edits: f,x deletes a comma, then ;. finds the next comma and deletes it too — repeat ;. as many times as needed
• The ; and , keys remember whether you used f or t, forward or backward — so after Fa, pressing ; searches backward for the next a and , searches forward
• Use df; (delete-find-semicolon) to delete up to and including a character, then ; to find the next one and . to delete to it as well
• In operator-pending mode, f/t combined with ; can extend the reach: d2f, deletes through the second comma, but df, then d; achieves a similar result in two repeatable steps
• If you remap ; and , to something else, you lose this repeat functionality — consider this before reassigning these keys
• Some users map ; to : for faster command-line access — if you do this, remap the repeat-find to another key so you don't lose it
• The f/t repeat state is global — using f or t for a new character replaces the previous one, so ; always repeats the most recent character search