Question

Let us assume that I select some text in Safari and copy it to the clipboard, for example “foo, bar” (without the quotation marks). I can see now that it is available in Macvim in the "* register by typing :reg. I can copy the content of this register into the Vim editor with a shortcut or using edit->paste. But how do I modify the content of this register (or any register for that matter), before pasting it. As an example, how would I apply a search and replace routine, such as searching for the “,” and replacing it with a “.”, such that the register now contains “foo. bar”?

Thanks in Advance!

Answer 1

:reg *
original content

let @*='altered content'

:reg * 
altered content

You can do that with every named register.

Your example can be dealt with:

let @a=substitute(@*,',','.','g')
"ap

But you should probably make some backup before actually doing anything too complicated:

:reg a
original content

let a_orig = @a

let @a='altered content'
"ap
altered content

let @a=a_orig

:reg a
original content