98
22
For example, if I have four lines as follows:
the first line
the second line
the third line
the fourth line
I want to reverse them to
the fourth line
the third line
the second line
the first line
How could I do this in Vim?
98
22
For example, if I have four lines as follows:
the first line
the second line
the third line
the fourth line
I want to reverse them to
the fourth line
the third line
the second line
the first line
How could I do this in Vim?
90
To reverse all the lines in a file,
:g/^/m0
For an explanation see
:help 12.4
which also shows how to reverse just a range of lines.
13Great tip on the exact help section! To summarize: 1. set a marker at the last line you want reverse (I name the marker 'a' using ma
), 2. move cursor to the first line of the block, 3. type :'a,.g/^/m 'a
– Brent Faust – 2013-12-06T19:25:52.067
74
Select the desired lines, hit !
, and in the resulting prompt pipe the lines through tac
a la :'<,'>!tac
. See man tac
for more details.
I can confirm that this works in windows with gvim
, as well! Otherwise, you have to use absolute line numbers (maybe you can use relative, but you have to be careful) with the :g/^/m0
(which is also really hard to remember) ... So, essentially, tac should be with vim no matter what platform you're on, BUT it's not 100% vimscript, BUT who cares :P – dylnmc – 2018-03-12T13:27:44.040
tac isn't fully-native vim handling, but, the 'm'ove command takes a line number and that's not always reasonable. I often use a mark as part of a range, so :.,'a!tac
works with minimal effort. – studog – 2018-09-26T13:23:57.807
After using shift+v
, you can use }
to reach up to the next paragraph, or empty vertical space. Also, man tac: concatenate and print files in reverse
. – nilon – 2019-08-10T03:58:04.603
4To select the lines, use shift+v
to enter visual line mode, then j
to add lines to the selection. – wisbucky – 2014-05-21T21:46:23.840
36
On Mac OS X, tac
does not exist, but you can use tail -r
to the same effect:
:%!tail -r
This also works nicely for visual mode:
:'<,'>!tail -r
Excerpt from tail(1)
's manpage:
The -r option causes the input to be displayed in reverse order, by line. Additionally, this option changes the meaning of the -b, -c and -n options. When the -r option is specified, these options specify the number of bytes, lines or 512-byte blocks to display, instead of the bytes, lines or blocks from the beginning or end of the input from which to begin the display. The default for the -r option is to display all of the input.
1Genius. Never thought of using ! commands for this type of visual line manipulation. – Charlie Dalsass – 2019-05-15T15:20:57.607
3Excellent! So to provide 'tac' under OS X: alias tac='tail -r'
– Brent Faust – 2013-12-06T19:27:42.543
4You can also brew install coreutils
and use gtac
. – Andrew Marshall – 2014-04-11T03:25:49.650
4
A command :Rev[erse]
and optional mappings for your vimrc
, so you don't have to remember and perform the non-obvious steps of this recipe:
" Reverse the lines of the whole file or a visually highlighted block.
" :Rev is a shorter prefix you can use.
" Adapted from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vim/message/34305
command! -nargs=0 -bar -range=% Reverse
\ let save_mark_t = getpos("'t")
\<bar> <line2>kt
\<bar> exe "<line1>,<line2>g/^/m't"
\<bar> call setpos("'t", save_mark_t)
nmap <Leader>r :Reverse<CR>
xmap <Leader>r :Reverse<CR>
(:xmap
maps for Visual but not Select mode, as :help mapmode-x
advises for mapping printable characters.)
(Based on: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vim/message/34305 )
This should be the accepted answer IMO. Most generally useful and I don't have to remember :'<,'>g/^/m'<
:) – Eliot – 2017-01-11T22:01:38.570
1@Eliot, thanks! :) (I added a bit of 'bonus content'. ;) ) – Aaron Thoma – 2017-01-12T18:14:25.737
How can I say selection start -1 in this case? Because the move starts at this point. – SergioAraujo – 2018-02-17T10:31:47.173
@SergioAraujo: Is something like :-1,+1Rev
what you are looking for? Know that you can visually select the range you want to reverse, e.g.: V7j:Rev
. If that doesn’t answer your question, I haven’t understood it, so you’d need to elaborate or rephrase it for me. – Aaron Thoma – 2018-02-17T15:30:10.343
3
For those more comfortable with Visual mode:
1. Identify the line number above the selection you want flipped using :set nu
.
2. Shift-V
to highlight selection you want flipped (visual mode).
3. :g/^/m <Line number from step 1>
.
Note that in visual mode it will automatically show up as
:'<,'>g/^/m <Line number>
when you type in the command from 3.
This command works by moving the selection one line at a time into the line number that you give it. When the second item gets pushed into the line number given, it pushes the first down to line number + 1. Then the third pushes the first and second down and so on until the entire list has been pushed into the single line number resulting in a reverse ordered list.
4You can use the '<
instead of entering the line number manually. Just start the selection one line earlier and execute :'<,'>g/^/m'<
. – Palec – 2016-09-15T09:06:31.097
1
Let' say you are at the line 3, hence we have a range 3 to 6. Just type.
:3,6g/^/m2
1You can leave the current line’s number implicit: With the cursor on your range’s first line, you can shorten to :,6g/^/m2
; or when on the range’s last line: :3,g/^/m2
; and :3,6g/^/m2
works from anywhere in the file. – Aaron Thoma – 2018-02-17T15:47:13.440
2
Duplicate on [SO]: How to flip a visual selection in vim?
– Palec – 2014-12-27T14:51:01.7031
Related: Reverse all lines @ Vim Wikia
– Palec – 2014-12-27T14:53:04.3471
:command! -bar -range=% Reverse <line1>,<line2>global/^/m<line1>-1
https://vi.stackexchange.com/a/2107/10254 – qeatzy – 2017-12-19T08:52:01.663