Question

I know this must be something simple.

Why does vnoremap <leader>rl di[<esc>pa] wrap selected text in brackets, but:

vnoremap <leader>rl :call VisAddRefLink()<CR>

function! VisAddRefLink()
    execute "normal! di[\<esc>pa]"
endfunction

doesn’t?!

Any help appreciated!

Answer 1

Try this:

vnoremap <leader>rl :<C-u>call VisAddRefLink()<CR>

function! VisAddRefLink()
    execute "normal! gvdi[\<esc>pa]"
endfunction

The <C-u> in front of the call avoids that the mapping inserts the '<,'> visual range in front of it; we want the function called only one time, not once for every line in the range.

Inside the function, we need to re-establish the visual selection first before operating on it; the gv does that.