Copy and paste content from one file to another file in vi

Question

I am working with two files, and I need to copy a few lines from one file and paste into another file. I know how to copy (yy) and paste (p) in the same file. But that doesn

Answer 1

If you want to copy a part of a file and paste that content in the middle of another file, you can do this way.

:linenumber,linenumber write newfile

Example:

:2,34 write temp1

Or

:'mark, 'mark write newfile

Example:

:'a,'b write temp1

Now the lines are copied to another file. If you want to delete those lines after copying, you can do

:linenumber1,linenumber2 d

Or

:'mark1,'mark2 d

Now, go to other file. Then keep the cursor on the line where you wanted to paste.

Type

:r!cat temp1

Now, the content of the temp file is pasted here. You can delete the temp file from the command line itself, after pasting the content.

:!rm temp1

This would help if you wanted to copy and paste several times.