How to fill a line with character x up to column y using Vim

Question

How can I fill the remainder of a line with the specified character up to a certain column using Vim? For example, imagine that the cursor is on column four and I want to fi

Answer 1

One of the other answers here is: 80Axd80|. I initially started using it as a key mapping like this:

nnoremap - 80A-d80

...but I didn't like how it leaves the cursor at the end of the line. Also, for narrow windows (e.g. just a little wider than 80 cells), it causes the entire window to scroll horizontally because the cursor briefly jumps to the end of the long line before it's trimmed back to 80. This is partially resolved by returning to the beginning of the line:

nnoremap - 80A-d800

...but then the screen will "flash" briefly while the cursor jumps offscreen and back (thus scrolling the window briefly to the right and back). To prevent this, we can temporarily use reverse insert mode (:h revins or :h ri) to keep the cursor onscreen while appending. Here's the full command as a key mapping:

nnoremap - :set ri80A-81d$0:set nori