Recording macros in vim

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Recording macros in vim

It is possible to record a sequence of action in vim as a macro and then play it later to achieve the same result.

Recording macro

To record a macro use following steps:

• Change mode to normal mode, if not already.
• Press 'q' to start recording
• Press a single letter alphabet to store the recoding into, eg 'a'
• Perform actions that should be recorded
• If at the end of actions you are not in normal mode than press 'Esc' to go to normal mode
• Press 'q' to stop recording

Playing macro

Once a macro is recorded it can be played using '@<alphabet>' key combination in normal mode where <alphabet> is the single letter alphabet where the recording was stored. The same macro can be played many times by using vim's repeat syntax '<number>@<alphabet>'