Number a group of lines

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Tip: #124 - Number a group of lines

Created: October 1, 2001 16:37 Complexity: basic Author: Brian Medley Version: 5.7 Karma: 6/3 Imported from: Tip#124

Below is a way to number a set of lines. Here is an exaple before and after snapshot:

 apple 
 bob 
 pear 
 tree 

 1 apple 
 2 bob 
 3 pear 
 4 tree 

Description:

This provides a command and a function. They both can be called with or without a range. In addition, they can be called with or without arguments. Without a range they operate on the current line.

There are two supported arguments. They are described below:

arg1 -> the number to start at. The default is one. This will

number your selected lines sequentially. The start can be a

number, ., $, or, 'x (like getline).

arg2 -> Text to append after numbers. The default is a space.

Examples:

To provide your functionality:

%Nlist 20

%call Nlist(20)

To make a list start at 1:

'<,'>Nlist

'<,'>call Nlist()

To number the whole buffer (with it's actual line number):

%Nlist

%call Nlist()

To number a subset of lines with their line number (and put a '] ' in

front of every number):

'<,'>Nlist . ]\

'<,'>call Nlist(".", "] ")

command! -nargs=* -range Nlist <line1>,<line2>call Nlist(<f-args>)

function! Nlist(...) range

if 2 == a:0 
let start = a:1 
let append = a:2 
elseif 1 == a:0 
let start = a:1 
let append = " " 
else 

let start = 1 
let append = " " 
endif 

" try to work like getline (i.e. allow the user to pass in . $ or 'x) 

if 0 == (start + 0) 
let start = line(start) 
endif 

exe a:firstline . "," . a:lastline . 's/^/\=line(".")-a:firstline+start.append/' 

endfunction

Comments

There is now a plugin (nlist.vim) in the "scripts" section that does this. The plugin also handles justifying the numbers. I probably should have waited and not made this tip...

Brian Medley , October 1, 2001 22:25

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TODO

Should we keep this tip if there is a plugin that superseeds it? I say no.