Question

Vim has some very useful text motions such as ib, i), i}, etcetera to quickly select a portion of text. But, I often need an inner block in line-wise mode. For example (with line numbers):

1:    $foo = array(
2:        'bar' => 'Bar',
3:        'quux' => 'Quux',
4:    );

Now, when my cursor is on line 2 or 3 somewhere and I hit vib or vi), Vim selects line 2, 3 and the indenting spaces on line 4. I just want line 2 and 3. I have tried with Vib and Vi) but they do the same as with a lowercase v.

Is there any easy text motion or other quick way to select an inner block in line-wise mode?

Answer 1

I found a simpler way in the end: vim-indent-object allows me to select regions of text based on the indentation level. This is pretty much the same thing considering my source code is always nicely indented.

Now, if I am on line 2 or 3 in my example, I can simply press vii to select the inner indentation object, and it selects line 2 and 3. Groovy!