How do I remove the first character in N lines in vim?

Question

When I paste into vim I often get a # character at the start of each line I've pasted.

Is there an easy way I can remove the first char on N lines (without regex)?

Thanks!

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2514445/turning-off-auto-indent-when-pasting-text-into-vim/2514520#2514520 — FDinoff, Sep 02 '15 at 17:01
Cursor on first character to delete, `v`, move to the last character to delete, `x` (`v` starts column-wise selection in visual mode). — Renaud Pacalet, Sep 03 '15 at 05:45

Sagar Jain · Answer 1 · 2015-09-06T16:06:19.103

5

Go to the first occurrence of # in the pasted text.

Enter blockwise visual mode.

ctrl-V

Select first character in each line pasted.

<count>j

where count = N - 1

Delete the selected text.

Btw, your concern should have been to avoid getting # altogether when you paste. The solution to which is :set paste

edited Sep 06 '15 at 16:06

answered Sep 06 '15 at 15:57

Sagar Jain

fujianjin6471 · Answer 2 · 2015-09-06T16:18:51.320

5

Method 1:

Select these N lines and press :, the command line will look like this

:'<,'>

complete the command as :'<,'>normal x and press Enter

Method 2:

Say the the number of first line and last line you pasted in are startNumber and endNumber, just use command line:

:startNumber,endNumber normal x

edited Sep 06 '15 at 16:18

answered Sep 06 '15 at 16:13

fujianjin6471

2 Answers2