Any way to delete in vim without overwriting your last yank? [duplicate]

Answer 1

If you are an evil user, you may consider remapping X to do the equivalent of "_d. However, perfecting the implementation was a little tricky for me. Nonetheless, I found that

(define-key evil-normal-state-map "X" 'evil-destroy)
(define-key evil-visual-state-map "X" 'evil-destroy)

(evil-define-operator evil-destroy (beg end type register yank-handler)
  "delete without yanking text"
  (evil-delete beg end type 95 yank-handler)
)

integrates very nicely. For example, typing XX will function analogously to dd, as will X$ to d$, X0 to d0, etc...

If you are curious as to how it works, "95" represents the "_ register, so it simply reroutes your call to delete as if "_ had been the register pressed.

Answer 2

For your specific question, as asked, couldn't you just swap the order of the last 2 steps?

• yank line (same)
• move to new location (same)
• paste yanked line (was step 4)
• delete line you don't want (was step 3)

Granted, I usually use a named register for this type of thing, but sometimes the solution is simpler than what first comes to mind.

Answer 3

You could use registers: "<register><command>

E.g.:

This yanks a line into register a, deletes a different line, and then pastes register a

"ayy` (move) `dd"aP

Answer 4

I use the following mapping to make deleting to the black hole register a bit easier:

nnoremap R "_d

This way, dd becomes Rd and d$ becomes R$. Note that R is normally bound to enter replace mode, but I found that I never used that, so it was the easisest to remember key for a "really remove" feature.

Answer 5

You can also try out the following script: ReplaceWithRegister at vim.org/scripts/

Answer 6

" map paste, yank and delete to named register so the content
" will not be overwritten
nnoremap d "xd
vnoremap d "xd
nnoremap y "xy
vnoremap y "xy
nnoremap p "xp
vnoremap p "xp