🌄 vim-textobj-delimiters

This plugin is no longer being maintained. Check out targets.vim instead, which does everything this does plus more.

This plugin adds various symbols as delimiting text-objects.

Block delimiters are symbols that mark the beginning and end of a region of text. With Vim's text-objects, these delimited text sections can be edited with operators and motions. The block delimiters that Vim already support include (parentheses), [brackets], {braces}, "double quotes", 'single quotes', <angled brackets>, and <a>tags<\a>. This plugin adds several additional block delimiters.

Table of Contents

1. Installation
2. Symbols
3. Usage

Installation

This plugin depends on Kana's plugin vim-textobj-user, so it should be installed if not already done so.

Install using your favorite package manager, or use Vim's built-in package support:

Vim 8 Native Package Manager

mkdir ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start/vim-textobj-user
git clone https://github.com/kana/vim-textobj-user.git ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start/vim-textobj-user

mkdir ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start/vim-textobj-delimiters
git clone https://github.com/EvanQuan/vim-textobj-delimiters.git ~/.vim/pack/plugin/start/vim-textobj-delimiters

Vim-Plug

1. Add Plug 'kana/vim-textobj-user' to your vimrc file.
2. Add Plug 'EvanQuan/vim-textobj-delimiters' to your vimrc file.
3. Reload your vimrc or restart.
4. Run :PlugInstall

Vundle

1. Add Plugin 'kana/vim-textobj-user' to your vimrc file.
2. Add Plugin 'EvanQuan/vim-textobj-delimiters' to your vimrc file.
3. Reload your vimrc or restart.
4. Run :BundleInstall

NeoBundle

1. Add NeoBundle 'EvanQuan/vim-textobj-delimiters' to your vimrc file.
2. Add NeoBundle 'kana/vim-textobj-user' to your vimrc file.
3. Reload your vimrc or restart.
4. Run :NeoUpdate

Pathogen

git clone https://github.com/kana/vim-textobj-user.git ~/.vim/bundle/vim-textobj-user

git clone https://github.com/EvanQuan/vim-textobj-delimiters.git ~/.vim/bundle/vim-textobj-delimiters

Symbols

The following symbols are now recognized as block delimiters, marking the start and end of a region of text:

Symbol	Name
*	asterisk
\	backslash
:	colon
$	dollar sign
=	equal sign
-	minus sign/dash
%	percent sign
.	period
|	pipe
+	plus sign
?	question mark
/	slash
_	underscore

But what about commas?

vim-textobj-parameter provides support for function parameters or comma-separated lists.

Usage

Similar to how quotes, parentheses, and brackets amongst other block delimiters can mark the start and end of a region of text and can have edited with the 'c' (change), 'd' (delete), 'v' (visual) and 'y' (yank) operators, vim-textobj-delimiters provides several new text-objects which are triggered by a and i motions. While there may be any number of uses for these delimiters, here are some examples for where they may be used.

Asterisks

Selections of text surrounded by asterisks (*) is fairly common in markdown files, marking *italicized* or **bold** text.

Backslash

In Windows-style path names, directories are separated\with\backslashes.

Colon

For Vim modelines, values are delimited with colons, such as:

vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl:

Certain tags, such as markdown emojis are also also delimited with colons: >

:sunrise_over_mountains:

Dollar Sign

In LaTeX files, inline math mode is delimited with $single dollar signs$, while $$double dollar signs$$ delimits display math mode.

Equal Sign

In certain text formats, titles are delimited with equal sign:

=== such as this ===

Minus Sign/Dash

Languages like Lisp and css often use kebab case variable names, which separate-words-with-dashes. In webiste URLs, text of certain directories or titles are often in kebab case as well.

Percent Sign

In some web templates, language boundaries are

<% surrounded with template delimiters such as this %>

Period

In many programming languages, periods denote member variables of a class or object, be it an attribute or method. If these member variables are written in snake_case, or kebab-case, then using word or WORD text-objects will not be enough to edit them. For example:

foo.delete-this.bar
foo.delete_this.bar

Pipe

Hot-links in Vim help documentation and markdown tables delimit text with pipe characters.

For example, suppose you have the following markdown table:

| Cats         | Dogs     |
|:------------:|:--------:|
| Mr. Whiskers | Snuffles |
| Oscar        | Bella    |

If you want to change 'Mr. Whiskers' to 'Tigger', you can do the following (cursor position marked by *):

| Mr. Wh*iskers | and type ci| to get |*|, where you can make your replacement | Tigger | .

Another example is if you are writing Vim help documentation and have a hot-link, which is a word surrounded with pipes as such:

|bad tag|

If you want to delete the hot-link, you can do the following (cursor position marked by *):

|bad*tag| and type da|, which will delete the hot-link.

Plus Sign

In mathematical expressions or string concatenation, certain text may incidentally be delimited with plus signs such as:

a = 4 + 457 + 12

message = "Hello" + "there" + "General" + "Kenobi"

Admittedly, there does not seem to be much use to this as the quote and word text objects can achieve the same thing.

Question Mark

In XML, processing instructions are

<? delimited with question marks ?>

Slash

In website URLs and Unix-style path names, directories are separated/with/slashes.

Underscore

Languages like C, Python, and Ruby often use snake case variable names, which separate_words_with_underscores. In website URLs, text of certain directories or titles are often in snake case as well.