Normal-mode commands[]
Swap the current character (the character under the cursor) with the next:
xp
Swap the current character with the previous:
Xp or hxp
Swap the current line with the next (but see below for a better method):
ddp
Swap the current line with the previous:
ddkP or ddkkp
Swap the current word with the next (see note):
dawwP dawelp hdeep (works at start of first word, useful if your separators aren't spaces) "xdiwdwep"xp (works with most punctuations too)
Swap the current word with the previous (see note):
dawbP
Note: These swap-word techniques don't work with punctuation. Use the mappings below to more intelligently move words. However, for many more complex swaps, several plugins are available which often do a better job.
Mappings[]
See moving lines up or down for the best method to move lines.
To use gc to swap the current character with the next, without changing the cursor position:
:nnoremap <silent> gc xph
To use gw to swap the current word with the next, without changing cursor position: (See note.)
:nnoremap <silent> gw "_yiw:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o><c-l>:nohlsearch<CR> " This version will work across newlines: :nnoremap <silent> gw "_yiw:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\_W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o><c-l>:nohlsearch<CR>
To use gl to swap the current word with the previous, keeping cursor on current word: (This feels like "pushing" the word to the left.) (See note.)
:nnoremap <silent> gl "_yiw?\w\+\_W\+\%#<CR>:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\_W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o><c-l>:nohlsearch<CR>
To use gr to swap the current word with the next, keeping cursor on current word: (This feels like "pushing" the word to the right.) (See note.)
:nnoremap <silent> gr "_yiw:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\_W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o>/\w\+\_W\+<CR><c-l>:nohlsearch<CR>
To use g{ to swap the current paragraph with the next:
:nnoremap g{ {dap}p{
Note: Mappings above which perform a search-and-replace (ones containing :s//) will operate incorrectly on words with accented characters. To adjust the mappings above to work with your locale, replace all \w with [alphabet] and \W with [^alphabet], where alphabet is the set of characters in your alphabet. :help /\w
For ISO/IEC_8859-1 Latin-1 Supplement characters, substitute all \w instances with [0-9A-Za-zÀ-ÖØ-öø-ÿ_] and all \_W instances with \_[^0-9A-Za-zÀ-ÖØ-öø-ÿ_].
Visual-mode swapping[]
To use this mapping: first, delete some text (using a command such as daw or dt in normal mode, or x in visual mode). Then, use visual mode to select some other text, and press Ctrl-X. The two pieces of text should then be swapped.
:vnoremap <C-X> <Esc>`.``gvP``P
Related plugins[]
- vim-exchange Easy text exchange/swap operator (+ script using vim-exchange to swap two words)
- Visual Mode Based Swapping script by Chip Campbell to swap visually-selected text
- Swap plugin provides mappings to swap adjacent words or selected text around a "pivot"
- Transpose words plugin swap two words as M-t (transpose words) in Emacs or bash
- Swap two columns plugin swap two columns (words) in one line or multiple selected lines
- Flipwords plugin swap delimited words
- vim-tip-swap-word variation on the topic that avoids side effects like polluting registers
See also[]
- Moving lines up or down mappings to move lines up/down, with re-indenting
- Transposing script to move current or selected lines up/down
Comments[]
Swap all lines in a visual selected block[]
When working with arrays I sometimes realize that I have to do things in the opposite order. To easily change this I created this small function:
function SwapAll() range
if a:firstline != a:lastline
if a:firstline < a:lastline
let first=a:firstline
let last=a:lastline
else
let first=a:lastline
let last=a:firstline
endif
while first < last
exec first.'m'.last.'|'.(last-1).'m'.(first-1)
let first=first+1
let last=last-1
endwhile
endif
endfunction
vmap <silent> <C-s> :call SwapAll()<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <C-x> :call SwapAll()<CR>
--December 4, 2013