Vim: Indent with one space (not shiftwidth spaces)
To change the number of space characters inserted for indentation, use the shiftwidth
option:
:set shiftwidth = <number>
Have a look here for more details.
You can also add that to your .vimrc
file.
I'm not sure that there is a better way. But, there are a few ways that you could do it (that I can think of anyway)...
Your Visual Block Solution
Like you said: press Ctl-V
select the lines you want, press I
to insert, and enter the number of spaces.
Search
Similar to the above but a little more flexible - you can use with with the 'select paragraph' vip
command, or any range really: press v
or vip
or what have you to select the range, and the type :s/^/{n spaces}
where {n spaces} is the number of spaces you want to insert.
Its a little more verbose, but works pretty well for pretty much any range. Heck, if you wanted to do the whole file you could do Ctl-A
(OS dependent) and indent the whole file (or just skip the whole visual mode thing and just do it command mode...as in :1,$s/^/{n spaces}
Note that you don't have to include the third slash in s/// since you aren't putting any switches at the end of the search.
Global
Maybe you want to only indent lines that match some pattern. Say...all lines that contain foo. No problem: type :g/foo/s/^/{n spaces}
Global is especially handy if its multi-line sections with a similar pattern. You can just escape into normal mode land and select the lines you want and indent accordingly: :g/foo/norm Vjj:s/^/{n spaces}Ctl-V{Enter}
. Little more complicated with that extra Ctl-V{Enter}
at the end but useful under certain circumstances.
Use tabstop and shiftwidth
Yes, if your doing it a lot - I'd do :set ts=2
and :set et
and :set sw=2
and use >>
and <<
every which way...
Make a Function
Okay, so still not brief enough and for whatever reason you need to do this a lot and you can't abide messing with sw
, et
and ts
settings. No problem, just write up a quick function and give it a localleader
mapping:
function! AddSpace(num) range
let s:counter = 0
let s:spaces = ''
while s:counter < a:num
let s:spaces .= ' '
let s:counter = s:counter + 1
endwhile
execute a:firstline .','. a:lastline .'s/^/'. s:spaces
endfunction
:map <LocalLeader>i :call AddSpace(3)Ctl-V{enter}
Maybe just knowing more than one way to do this is better than only knowing one? After all, sometimes the best solution depends on the problem :)
If I'm understanding correctly, you could use:
ctrl+V, jj then ':le n', where n is the number of spaces to indent.
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Shifting_blocks_visually
Indent a block of code in vi by three spaces with Visual Block mode:
Select the block of code you want to indent. Do this using Ctrl+V in normal mode and arrowing down to select text. While it is selected, enter ":" to give a command to the block of selected text.
The following will appear in the command line:
:'<,'>
To set indent to 3 spaces, type
le 3
and press enter. This is what appears::'<,'>le 3
The selected text is immediately indented to 3 spaces.
Indent a block of code in vi by three spaces with Visual Line mode:
- Open your file in VI.
- Put your cursor over some code
Be in normal mode press the following keys:
Vjjjj:le 3
Interpretation of what you did:
V
means start selecting text.
jjjj
arrows down 4 lines, highlighting 4 lines.
:
tells vi you will enter an instruction for the highlighted text.
le 3
means indent highlighted text 3 lines.