created by

Luc Hermitte

script type

utility

description

A tip would have been more accurate regarding what I am presenting here. But as some functions proposed are needed by another script of mine, here is a script file containing the definitions of three functions that can be used instead of expand("<cword>"). expand("<cword>") is a nice feature in VIM, but it is not very helpful when we have to deal with automatic completion -- you know : when you hit <tab> within VIM's command line or your favourite shell. Indeed, "<cword>" refers to the word under/after the cursor, while we need the word under/before the cursor. So, here is three functions : * GetPreviousWord() that returns the word preceding the cursor ; the word is either truncated at the cursor's position or completed by as many spaces as needed to reach this position. I call a word, a sequence of keyword characters ('\k', see :h isk).   It is handy, in C programming, to test what precedes the cursor when we hit '(', and then expand C control-structures (for, if, else, elif, switch, etc.) to anything desired. * GetCurrentWord() returns the word which is either stricly under the cursor or just before -- if the cursor is preceded by a space, an empty string is returned. Here, a word is a sequence of non white space characters : '\S' -- in order to expand regular expressions.   Cf. http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?script_id=46 v2.2 * GetNearestWord() returns the word ('\S') either under, just before or just after the cursor. You can take a look at a table showing the different returned values by this functions in equivalent contexts : http://hermitte.free.fr/vim/general.php3#expl_words_tools As I said before, a tip would have been more appropriate. These functions are just examples of want could be done on this topic. They fulfill some specific needs I had.

install details

Drop it in your macros folder and source it when needed. NB: this "library" is now distributed as part of lh-vim-lib: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=214

Click on the package to download.

package	script version	date	Vim version	user	release notes
words_tools.vim	1.0	2001-11-13	5.7	Luc Hermitte	Initial upload

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