What is your favorite way to comment several lines in Vim?

dimus_23080 0
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It happens more often than not that I have to comment several lines at once in Vim. Methods that I know are not as fast as say TextMate way to comment lines out.

What is your favorite way to do it?

I currently use:

Method 1:

  • go to first char of a line and use blockwise visual mode (ctrl-v)
  • go down/up until the first characters of every lines you want to comment out are selected
  • use shift-i and then type your comment character (# for Ruby)
  • use esc to insert the comment character to every line

Method 2:

  • select lines you need to comment out using linewise visual mode (shift-v)
  • type : which gives you a :'<,'> prompt which you can extend to :'<,'>s/^/#/

Method 3:

  • go to the first line to be commented out
  • make a bookmark for example typing mm
  • go to the last line to be commented out
  • type :'m,.s/^/#/

I like method 1 the most but I still hope there is a better way.

comments vim
6 Answers
CMS_54450

I use a keymap for the regex part, but I do the same visual selection first. Usually using:

vip

to get the visual block (paragraph visual selection)

then using 

\cc
\co

for comment add/remove (cc,co chosen for muscle memory reasons)

with the mappings defined in .vimrc as:

vmap <leader>cc :s/^/#/<cr>
vmap <leader>co :s/^#//<cr>
user_2260340

Though this is rather old I just wanted to add my solution which is pretty similar to everyone elses but adds the unhighlighting function. In my .vimrc file I have the following maps:

:vmap `c :s/^/\/*/<cr>gv:s/$/*\//<cr>:noh<cr>i
:vmap `r :s/^\/\*//<cr>gv:s/\*\/$/<cr>:noh<cr>i

Note: I use /*line of code*/ style of commenting to be compatible with old c code. In vim I simply highlight the lines and push `c to comment and `r to remove comments.

user_8332850

I normally just save the step in a macro and then invoke the macro in whichever fashion I feel like.

Sridhar_Iyer_138200

Plugins are the way to go. They are extensible, they already support more filetypes that you would ever use, they are automagically able to toggle the commented state of a line (in other words: no need to consume two shortcuts where one is enough).

See the list given by CMS.

Luc_Hermitte_159340
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