What Vim command(s) can be used to quote/unquote w

Question

How can I quickly quote/unquote words and change quoting (e.g. from ' to ") in Vim? I know about the surround.vim plugin, but I would like to use just Vim.

Answer 1

The macro ways !

1. press q and q for recording into q register (we use "q" as a shortcut to remember "quotes").

2. press shift + b move cursor to front of current word

3. press i type ' (a single quotes)

4. press esc then press e to move to end of word

5. press a then press ' again to surround the word with quotes.

6. press esc to get into normal mode.

7. finally press q to record it into q register.

How to use

1. Move cursor to a desired word.
2. Press @q to surround a word with quotes.
3. Press @@ if you want repeat it into another word.

You can alter step 4 with anything you like {a line, a word until found some character, etc}.

Make recorded macro persistent

1. open .vimrc
2. go to end of file
3. change to insert mode. type this to make it persistent:

let @q='ctrl + r ctrl + r q'

4. save and quit

5. open your files, go to some words

6. now press @q

if you do it correctly, magic things should appear in your words.

You can do this steps for other macros you loved.

Answer 2

Adding Quotes

I started using this quick and dirty function in my .vimrc:

vnoremap q <esc>:call QuickWrap("'")<cr>
vnoremap Q <esc>:call QuickWrap('"')<cr>

function! QuickWrap(wrapper)
  let l:w = a:wrapper
  let l:inside_or_around = (&selection == 'exclusive') ? ('i') : ('a')
  normal `>
  execute "normal " . inside_or_around . escape(w, '\')
  normal `<
  execute "normal i" . escape(w, '\')
  normal `<
endfunction

So now, I visually select whatever I want (typically via viw - visually select inside word) in quotes and press Q for double quotes, or press q for single quotes.

Removing Quotes

vnoremap s <esc>:call StripWrap()<cr>

function! StripWrap()
  normal `>x`<x
endfunction

I use vim-textobj-quotes so that vim treats quotes as a text objects. This means I can do vaq (visually select around quotes. This finds the nearest quotes and visually selects them. (This is optional, you can just do something like f"vww). Then I press s to strip the quotes from the selection.

Changing Quotes

KISS. I remove quotes then add quotes. For example, to replace single quotes with double quotes, I would perform the steps: 1. remove single quotes: vaqs, 2. add new quotes: vwQ.

---

• http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Wrap_a_visual_selection_in_an_HTML_tag code from here was modified and used as part of my answer
• https://github.com/beloglazov/vim-textobj-quotes vim-text-obj-quotes

Answer 3

Here are some simple mappings that can be used to quote and unquote a word:

" 'quote' a word
nnoremap qw :silent! normal mpea'<Esc>bi'<Esc>`pl
" double "quote" a word
nnoremap qd :silent! normal mpea"<Esc>bi"<Esc>`pl
" remove quotes from a word
nnoremap wq :silent! normal mpeld bhd `ph<CR>