:lockmarks keepjumps keeppatterns %s/foo/bar/ge
Large substitutions are efficient, but they often leave side effects: your last search changes, your jumplist gets noisy, and marks can shift in ways that break
command-line #command-line #editing #substitution #navigation
/\V<C-r><C-r>"
When your yanked text includes regex symbols like .
:packadd gzip
Compressed logs and artifacts often appear in debugging workflows, and repeatedly shelling out to decompress and recompress wastes time.
:let @+ = @a
If you already have carefully collected text in a named register, re-yanking just to reach the system clipboard is noisy and error-prone.
:packadd termdebug | Termdebug ./a.out
If you only debug occasionally, loading termdebug on demand keeps startup lean while still giving you an in-editor GDB workflow.
:'<,'>sort /\%20v/
When lines contain aligned columns, plain :sort often gives the wrong order because it compares from column 1.
visual-mode #visual-mode #sorting #text-processing #command-line
:cdo keeppatterns s/\<foo\>/bar/gec | update
When quickfix already contains precise targets, :cdo gives you a safer multi-file replace loop than broad project substitutions.
command-line #command-line #quickfix #substitute #refactoring
:vimgrep /\V<C-r><C-w>/gj **/*
When you need a project-wide search for the exact word under your cursor, this pattern avoids regex surprises and immediately populates quickfix.
:execute "normal! gg=G"<CR>
:execute lets you build and run Ex commands dynamically, which is critical when a command depends on variables, conditionals, or string composition.
command-line #command-line #ex-commands #normal-mode #automation
:history /
Power users tend to run long, composable searches during refactors, but the default / and ? history navigation can be noisy when command history and search hist
:@q
Most macro workflows focus on @q, which replays register q as normal-mode keystrokes.
:set sessionoptions-=curdir
When you restore a session with :source Session.
:packadd cfilter | Cfilter /pattern/
Large quickfix lists are hard to work with when you only care about one subset of matches.
:smagic/\vfoo.+/bar/
If you prefer very-magic regex syntax but don't want to change global settings, :smagic is a targeted solution.
:keepmarks {command}
Many batch edits in Vim update special marks like '[ and '], which can disrupt follow-up motions or tooling that depends on those positions.
navigation #navigation #marks #command-line #refactoring #editing
:packadd cfilter
Vim ships with useful optional runtime plugins that many users never load.
plugins #plugins #quickfix #location-list #search #command-line
:let @a = expand('%:p')
Named registers are not only for yanked text.
registers #registers #command-line #filename-modifiers #editing
%:S
When you build shell commands from Vim, file paths with spaces or special characters can break the command unless properly escaped.
command-line #command-line #filename-modifiers #shell #expansion
:set wrapscan!
wrapscan controls what happens when a / or ? search reaches the end (or beginning) of the file.
:argdedupe
If you build an arglist incrementally (:args, :argadd, glob expansions), duplicates can sneak in and make :argdo workflows slower or confusing.
command-line #command-line #arglist #batch-editing #workflow
