Paste registers in search or colon commands instead of using the clipboard
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Tip 490 Previous Tip • Next Tip
Created: June 20, 2003 Complexity: intermediate Author: rainbrot Minimum version: 5.7 Karma: 84/30 Imported from: Tip#490
You can type Ctrl-R to insert a register when in insert mode, or when typing in the command or search line. When you press Ctrl-R you will see " (quote) to prompt you to finish the command by entering a register. For example, press Ctrl-R then a to insert the contents of the a register, or Ctrl-R then " to insert the contents of the unnamed register.
You can press v then move the cursor to visually select some text (say the text is "hello world"). If you press y the selected text is yanked (copied) into the unnamed register. You can now type :%s/ then <C-r>" (Ctrl-R quote), which would show the following in the command line:
:%s/hello world
You could complete the substitute command, to read, for example:
:%s/hello world/goodbye everyone/gc
Type <C-r><C-w> to paste the word under the cursor into the command line, or <C-r><C-a> to paste the WORD.
