Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bbs!ddsw1!dattier
From: dattier@ddsw1.MCS.COM (David W. Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: VI : move current plus n lines to bottom
Summary: yes, it can be done
Message-ID: <1990Sep22.173733.28318@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 90 17:37:33 GMT
References: <1990Sep20.231510.4199@ingres.Ingres.COM>
Reply-To: dattier@ddsw1.MCS.COM (David W. Tamkin)
Organization: Contributor Account at ddsw1, Wheeling, Illinois
Lines: 38

<1990Sep20.231510.4199@ingres.Ingres.COM> by sergio@squid.Ingres.COM (Sergio
Aponte):

| 	In VI, I find myself in the need to move the current+n lines
| 	to the bottom of the file. I dont know much about macros. Can
| 	one be writen that will move the current plus n lines to the
| 	bottom of the current file?

My first instinct was (current+n meaning a total of n+1 lines) to recommend
:.,+n m$ [to move n+1 lines to the end].  But Mr. Aponte continued:

| 	It would be nice to type "6B" and have the lines moved.

Ah; that requires a different approach if you want to define a macro with the
number in front.  First, you'll need to use the total number of lines instead
of the number of lines following the current line: "6" will mean the current
line plus five more, totaling six, rather than the current line plus six
more.  You'll probably want to save B for its original function, but V is
next to it on the keyboard and unassigned, so let's use V.

:map V ddGp        [that's a capital gee, not a numeral six]

(from the command line or in your .exrc) will do it.  You can use a named
register if you want, like this:

:map V "zddG"zp    [again, that's a capital gee, not a numeral six]

but you'll still clobber the undo buffer anyway.  (Yes, specifying the number
before selecting a register does work.)  The only way to get around clobber-
ing the undo buffer is to use the ex syntax (:.,+n m$ where n is the number
of additional lines past the current line).  However, if you make a macro of
it you'll have to hard-code the number of lines to move; I know of no way to
put that onto a macro that will accept a number as a prepended parameter.
You could set up nine or ten mappings (from V0 or V1 through V9), each with a
hard-coded number, but that gets to be more work than it might be worth.

David Tamkin  Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  708 518 6769  312 693 0591
MCI Mail: 426-1818  GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN  CIS: 73720,1570   dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com