Using vi Abbreviations as Commands (Cut and Paste Between vi's) (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

17.24. Using vi Abbreviations as Commands (Cut and Paste Between vi's)

The vi command ab (Section 17.23) is for abbreviating words. But it's also good for abbreviating ex-mode commands that you type over and over. In fact, for ex-mode commands (commands that start with a colon (:)), abbreviations can be better than keymaps (Section 18.2). That's because you can choose almost any command name; you don't have to worry about conflicts with existing vi commands.

Here's an example. If you have a windowing terminal or more than one terminal, you might have vi sessions running in more than one place. Your system might have a way to transfer text between windows, but it can be easier to use files in /tmp -- especially for handling lots of text. (If your text is confidential and your umask (Section 49.4) isn't set to make new files unreadable by other users, try using a more private directory.) Here are some abbreviations from my .exrc (Section 17.30) file:

Go to http://examples.oreilly.com/upt3 for more information on: exrc

ab aW w! /tmp/jerry.temp.a
ab aR r /tmp/jerry.temp.a
ab bW w! /tmp/jerry.temp.b
ab bR r /tmp/jerry.temp.b
   ...

I use those abbreviations this way. To write the current and next 45 lines to temporary file a, I type this command in one vi session:

:.,+45 aW

To read those saved lines into another vi session, I use:

:aR

You can do the same thing in a single vi session by using named buffers (Section 17.4), but temporary files are the only method that works between two separate vi sessions.

-- JP