What happens when I enter .wq! in vim?

Question

What happens when I enter .wq! in vim? Is there a way to prohibit that behavior?

Answer 1

use vim's help to understand each of those

. - repeat last change - :h .

w - move cursor to next word - :h w

q! - q would start recording a macro but since ! isn't a valid register to record the macro to they simply cancel each other

you could add nmap .wq! <Nop> to your vimrc to make this combination a noop but I wouldn't recommend doing that. It would make your . respond slower since it's a prefix for an existing map so if you ever learn more and start using this feature this mapping will annoy you.

Answer 2

But if you use :.wq! it will try to save the current line, overwriting the current file.