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Colin Bartlett
Colin Bartlett

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at vimtricks.substack.com

VimTrick: Swap two characters

Here’s a quick trick that requires no plugins. You probably already know both of these commands but many people, including myself, might not have internalized the combination. A little reminder is sometimes all we need.

Use xp to swap the character under your cursor with the one to its right.

For example, suppose you have a misspelled word like so:

puts "Hlelo world!"

With your cursor on the misplaced l in Hlelo, type xp:

puts "H█elo world!"

The x deletes the character under the cursor and puts it in a register and p pastes that register to the right of the cursor. You end up with:

puts "Hello world!"

There's a quick screencast gif over on my VimTricks post for this.

I'm publishing new Vim tricks and tips every Monday and Thursday as an exercise to help me learn Vim. Even just writing up tips like this has had a tremendous impact on my productivity.

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