Question

I’m using the following command to copy all lines of text in a document to the system clipboard:

%y+

Usually, especially in order to copy code to StackOverflow ;), I apply a sed transformation to my buffer in order to make it easier to paste in with MarkDown:

%s:^:\t:g

Is there a way to chain the commands without actually applying it to my buffer, only to the copied text?

Answer 1

I suggest using a CLI utility to put it on the clipboard: there are several I found previously, but here’s one:

• http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/565

So you’d do

:%!sed 's:^:\t:g`|xclip

or

:%!sed 's:^:\t:g`|xclip -selection c

the latter uses the X clipboard instead of the primary clipboard (assuming UNIX).

On windows, there are likely similar utilities

Edit

A pure vim solution would be:

:let @+=substitute(join(getbufline("%", 1, "$"), "\r\n"), "^\\|\n", "\&\t", "g")

Notes:

• it is not very efficient (but you use it SO posts… so it’s not Homer’s Oddyssee)
• I assume that you want Windows line-ends (which is what I get when copying from SO anyways)