vim toggling buffer overwrite behavior when deleting

Question

Vim is great, but like many people I get really annoyed when I want to copy, delete, then paste -- the yank buffer gets overwritten by the delete action.

Now I know

Answer 1

OK, I got it -- this script in .vimrc lets me effectively toggle a "no buffer side-effects" mode whereby the d and x keys no longer overwrite the buffer when "no buffer side-effects" mode is activated.

Add this in .vimrc

function! ToggleSideEffects()
    if mapcheck("dd", "n") == ""
        noremap dd "_dd
        noremap D "_D
        noremap d "_d
        noremap X "_X
        noremap x "_x
        echo 'side effects off'
    else
        unmap dd
        unmap D
        unmap d
        unmap X
        unmap x
        echo 'side effects on'
    endif
endfunction
nnoremap ,, :call ToggleSideEffects()

Then to toggle in and out of this mode use the key combination ,, (two commas)