Question

I have a lot of php/html files with many strings that should be internationalized with gettext.
Therefore, I have to go through each file, spot the “message” strings and replace each one by

<?= _("<my string>") ?>

I use vim and would like to setup a shortcut (map) to do it easily in insert mode (With CtrlR for instance).

Do you know how to achieve that ?

Answer 1

I would use Tim Pope’s wonderful surround plugin to accomplish this.

Add the following to your ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/php.vim file:

let b:surround_{char2nr('_')} = "<?= _(\"\r\") ?>"

Now you can select some via visual mode then surround. e.g vitS_
If you are in insert mode you can surround text via <c-s>_ and you cursor will be inserted in between the double quotes.

As a bonus if you want to do the delete the surrounding <?= _("<text here>") ?> and only leave <text here> you can add the following to your ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/php.vim as well:

nmap <buffer> <silent> ds_ ds<dt(%df?[(xds"

Tim Pope has many great plugins I highly suggest you take a look some of them.

For more help see:

:h surround
:h surround-customizing
:h after-directory
:h curly-braces-names
:h b:var