vim: How do I replace a character under my cursor with previously yanked text (more than once)?
replace, vim
Solution
What about `s<C-r>0`, this can be repeated with `.`
- `s` deletes the character under the curser and puts you into insert mode.
- `<C-r>0` inserts register 0, which holds the yanked text.
You can also use `s` and type `foo` manually, which is also repeatable with `.`
Problem
Let's say I've yanked 3 characters "foo" into my clipboard by using a visual select + yank, ie: 'vllly' Then I've moved my cursor to another character (let's call this character x) on line 5 which I'd like to replace with what I yanked previously, namely foo. I can use 'p' to paste foo after x, or 'P' to paste foo before x, but I want to replace x with foo. I can use 'vp' to replace x with foo, but this only works once, as it leaves me with x in my clipboard. In other words, if I move to my next occurrence of x and hit vp again, it doesn't replace it with foo. Sure, I could do a search / replace by using :s/x/foo/gc and then ignoring all occurrences of x that I don't wish to replace, but this is a little tedious to type, particularly when all I need to do is replace 2 or 3 occurrences of x that are very close to my cursor but not on the same line (ie: lines 2, 3 and 7). So currently I'm using :2,7s/x/foo/gc but I wonder if there is a way to move my cursor to x and hit [insert magic button here] to replace it with foo. And then I can move to my next occurrence of x and hit [magic button] again and boom, it's replaced x with foo again. As much as it pains me to use this analogy, imagine you're typing in notepad, and you select 3 characters, hit Ctrl+c to copy them into your clipboard, and then highlight x, and hit Ctrl+v to replace it with foo. Then you highlight another x, and hit Ctrl+v again, and so on. How do I do this in vim?