~ / find / markslesson 3/5

Marks: m, ` and '

Drop a named bookmark and come back to it, or bounce back to where you jumped from.

?how it works

ma sets a mark named a at the cursor. You get 26 of them, a to z. Later, `a (backtick) jumps back to the exact spot, and 'a (apostrophe) jumps to that line's first non-blank character.

Neovim also keeps a mark for you: the spot you were at before your latest jump (G, gg, %, a search, a mark jump…). `` (two backticks) goes back to that exact spot and '' goes to that line. Press it again to bounce back.

Some other marks Neovim sets by itself:

`. the last change and `^ where you last left Insert mode (see The change list)
`< and `> the start and end of your last Visual selection

Marks are motions too, so d'a deletes every line from mark a to the cursor, and :marks lists them.

Uppercase marks (mA to mZ) are file marks: 'A jumps back to that file from anywhere.

⌨keys

`m{a-z}`	set a mark at the cursor
`{a-z}	jump to the exact position of a mark
`'{a-z}`	jump to the first non-blank of the mark's line
``	back to the position before the latest jump
`''`	back to the line of the position before the latest jump
`m{A-Z}`	set a file mark (remembers the file too)
`:marks`	list the marks

Nin neovim

Neovim saves your uppercase file marks in its ShaDa file (its replacement for Vim's viminfo), so 'A still takes you back to that file after you restart.

2 drills

Snap back with ``: Fix the first or last line (see the target), then snap back to exactly where you started with `` (two backticks).
Leave a mark, come back later: Mark your spot with ma, fix both the first and the last line, then return to your mark with `a.

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